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HD^IORISTS 

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COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Lake English Classics 

General Editor: LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A. B., Professor 
of English Literature and Rhetoric in Brown University 



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SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK CHICAGO 



tCbcXafte JEnglieb Claaeica 

EDITED BY 

LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A.B. 

Professor of English Literature and Rhetoric in 
Brown Univtrsiiy 



tlTiie %akt €nslisi}| €laiiiti 



Thackeray's 

English Humorists 

OF THE 

Eighteenth Century 



EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY 

J. W. CUNLIFFE, D.LiT. 

AND 

H. A. WATT, Ph.D. 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



CHICAGO NEW YORK 

SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 






Copyright 1911 
By SCOTT, FORESMAN and COMPANY 



f.3o 

©C(.A202440 



PREFACE 

kx The text of this edition is founded upon a careful com- 
l^parison of the first two English editions (of which one 
' oT the editors was fortunate enough to possess copies) 
with the first American edition, a copy of which, formerly 
belonging to Mr. Andrew D. White, was very kindly 
lent by the Cornell University Library. Hannay's notes, 
which were appended to the original editions, are excluded 
as unsuited to the purpose for which this volume is 
intended ; there is no proof that Thackeray had any hand 
in their preparation, and their omission gives room for 
explanatory matter very much more to the purpose; in 
the one or two cases where Hannay's comments seemed 
helpful, they have been retained, and, of course, duly 
acknowledged. The notes in this volume have been pre- 
pared by Dr. Watt, who wishes to acknowledge his obli- 
gations to previous editors; for the introduction I am 
responsible; the text we did together. 

j. w. cunliffe. 
University of Wisconsin. 
February, 1911. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 11 

lecture the first 
Swift 35 

lecture the second 

CONGREVE AND AdDISON 65 

lecture the third 
Steele 92 

lecture the fourth 
Prior, Gay, and Pope 128 

lecture the fifth 
Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding , . . . 159 

lecture the sixth 
Sterne and Goldsmith 185 

lecture the seventh 
Charity and Humor 217 

Notes 239 

9 



THACKERAY 

Thackeray belonged, as one of his English biographers 
says, to " quite the upper middle class." Family tradition 
gave his original namesake, William Makepeace, a place 
among the Protestant martyrs of the reign of Queen Mary. 
His great grand-father was a fellow of King's College, 
Cambridge, and headmaster of Harrow. Both his grand- 
fathers were in the service of the East India Company; 
so was his father; and it was at Calcutta that he himself 
was born on July 18, 1811. His father died when he was 
four years old, and when he was six he was sent to Eng- 
land to be educated. One of his earliest recollections was 
of landing at the island of St. Helena on the voyage, and 
seeing Napoleon I, who was imprisoned there: 

My black servant took me a long walk over rocks and hills 
until we reached a garden, where we saw a man walking. "That 
is he," said the black man; "that is Bonaparte! He eats three 
sheep every day, and all the little children he can lay hands on." 
(Thackeray's Lecture on George III.) 

The little boy lived for a while near London with his 
aunt, who was alarmed to find that he could wear her 
husband's hat. She took him to a celebrated London 
physician, who reassured her, saying: " He has a large 
head,, but there's a good deal in it." His brain, as a mat- 
ter of fact, was of unusual size, but he gave little evidence 
of this either at the school he first attended at Chiswick 
Mall (probably described as "Miss Pinkerton's academy 
for young ladies " in the first chapter of Vanity Fair) or 
at Charterhouse, to which he was sent when his mother 



12 INTRODUCTION 

returned from India with her second husband, Major 
Carmichael Smyth, in 1822. Thackeray was neither 
happy nor successful at the great London public school, 
though he came in after-life to look back on it with warm 
afifection, and often described it in his novels. He was 
not distinguished either at sports or at studies, but was 
popular among his schoolfellows for his kindly disposition 
and his faculty for making humorous verses and drawings. 
In 1828, to his own great relief, he left Charterhouse, and 
early the next year entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 
w^here he led the same "lazy but pleasant and ' gentle- 
manlike ' life " he would have adopted at school, but for 
his terror of the headmaster. Dr. Thompson, afterwards 
Master of Trinity, who was an undergraduate with 
Thackeray, says that " though careless of university dis- 
tinction, he had a vivid appreciation of English poetry, 
and chanted the praises of the old English novelists, espe- 
cially his model, Fielding. He had always a flow of 
humor and pleasantry, and was made much of by his 
friends. At supper-parties, though not talkative — rather 
observant — he enjoyed the humors of the hour, and sang 
one or two old songs with great applause." Probably 
Thackeray's greatest gain from his college days lay in the 
friendships he formed — some of them, as with Tennyson 
and Fitzgerald, the translator of Omar Khayyam, lasting 
all through his life. He contributed to a little university 
paper, called The Snob, a parody on the subject of Tenny- 
son's prize poem Timbuctoo, and other skits. He formed 
" strong resolutions " to begin a more regular course of 
reading "to-morrow," and wrote to his mother: "I 
have some thoughts of writing, for a college prize, an 



INTRODUCTION 13 

English essay on ' The influence of the Homeric Poems 
on the Religion, the Politics, the Literature and Society 
of Greece,' but it will require much reading, which I fear 
I have not time to bestow on it." These good resolutions 
came to nothing, and after two years' residence Thackeray 
left Cambridge without a degree. 

After a continental tour Thackeray settled for a while 
at Weimar to study German literature. He enjoyed the 
society of the " dear little Saxon city " and won his way 
by his kindly manners and love of children, for whom he 
delighted to draw funny pictures. Some of these attracted 
the notice of Goethe, the grand patriarch of European 
letters, then eighty-one years of age. A quarter of a 
century later Thackeray wrote the following description 
of the interview: 

Of course I remember very well the perturbation of spirit with 
which, as a lad of nineteen, I received the long-expected intima- 
tion that the Herr Geheimerath would see me on such a morning. 
This notable audience took place in a little ante-chamber of his 
private apartments, covered all round with antique casts and bas 
reliefs. He was habited in a long gray or drab redingot, with a 
white neckcloth, and a red ribbon in his buttonhole. He kept his 
hands behind his back, just as in Ranch's statuette. His com- 
plexion was very bright, clear and rosy. His eyes extraordinarily 
dark, piercing and brilliant. I felt quite afraid before them, and 
recollect comparing them to the eyes of the hero of a certain 
romance called Melnoth, the Wanderer, which used to alarm us 
boys thirty years ago; eyes of an individual who had made a bar- 
gain with a Certain Person, and at an extreme old age retained 
these eyes in all their awful splendor. I fancied Goethe must 
have been still more handsome as an old man than even in the 
tlays of his youth. His voice was very rich and sweet. He asked 
me questions about myself, which I answered as best I could. I 



14 INTRODUCTION 

recollect I was at first astonished, and then somewhat relieved, 
when I found he spoke French with not a good accent. 

Though his sun was setting, the sky round about was calm and 
bright, and that little Weimar illumined by it. In every one of 
those kind salons the talk was still of art and letters. The theater, 
though possessing no very extraordinary actors, was still conducted 
with a noble intelligence and order. The actors read books, and 
were men of letters and gentlemen, holding a not unkindly rela- 
tionship with the Adel [the Nobility]. At Court the conversation 
was exceedingly friendly, simple and polished. The Grand 
Duchess (the present Grand Duchess Dowager), a lady of very 
remarkable endowments, would kindly borrow our books from us, 
lend us her own, and graciously talk to us young men about our 
literary tastes and pursuits. In the respect paid by this Court to 
the Patriarch of letters, there was something ennobling, I think, 
alike to the subject and sovereign. With a five-and-twenty years' 
experience since those happy days of which I write, and an 
acquaintance with an immense variety of humankind, I think I 
have never seen a society more simple, charitable, courteous, gen- 
tlemanlike, than that of the dear little Saxon city where the good 
Schiller and the great Goethe lived and lie buried. 

Thackeray had at this time some notion of preparing 
himself for the diplomatic service — a scheme that was 
soon abandoned. He did not take any more kindly to 
^ preparation for the law, which he found " one of the most 
cold-blooded, prejudiced pieces of invention that ever a 
man was slave to," and as soon as he came of age he gave 
that up too. His next venture was in journalism, on the 
staff of The National Standard and Journal of Literature, 
Science, Music, Theatricals, and the Fine Arts, owned in 
part by his stepfather, Major Carmichael Smyth, whom 
he greatly admired and took later as a model for his most 
lovable character, Colonel Newcome. Thackeray became 
editor and proprietor of the paper, which soon came to a 



INTRODUCTION 15 

disastrous end ; he lost part of his small fortune in it, and 
the rest went in equally rash speculations about the same 
time. While acting as Paris correspondent of the 
National Standard, he had serious thoughts of turning 
artist; but his marriage in 1836 made it necessary for him 
to earn his living, and journalism was his only practical 
resource. He had already begun to contribute to Eraser's 
Magazine, one of the leading periodicals of the day; he 
also wrote for the London Times and the New York 
Corsair. His first novel, the Shabby Genteel Story (for 
Catherine is a mere satirical extravaganza) was running 
in Fraser in 1840, when it was cut short at the ninth 
chapter by the illness of his wife, whose mind gave way 
after a fever. She never recovered, and Thackeray, not 
yet thirty years old, was left virtually a widow^er, with 
two little girls to look after. His life was permanently 
saddened, for he was a man of strong domestic affections, 
but he did not repine. Many years after, he wrote to a 
young friend about to be married : 

I married at your age, with £400, paid by a newspaper which 
failed six months afterwards, and always love to hear of a young 
fellow testing his fortune bravely in that way. If I can see my 
way to help you, I will. Though my marriage was a wreck, a,s 
you know, I would do it over again, for behold. Love is the crown 
and completion of all earthly good. 

The Great Hoggarty Diamond, published in Fraser in 
1841, was appreciated by the critics, if not by the public, 
and in the same year an opportunity was opened for 
Thackeray's satirical genius by the foundation of the great 
English comic paper. Punch, to which he contributed for 
many years, both with pen. and pencil. Barry Lyndon, 
published in Fraser in 1844, is now acknowledged to be 



16 INTRODUCTION 

his first great novel, but at the time public recognition 
came slowly; in 1845, the editor of the Edinburgh Review 
could still write to one of his contributors: 

Will you tell me, confidentially of course, whether you know 
anything of a Mr. Thackeray, about whom Longman has written 
me, thinking he would be a good hand for light articles? He 
(Longman) says that this Mr, Thackeray is one of the best writers 
in Punch. One requires to be very much on one's guard in engag- 
ing with mere strangers. In a journal like the Edinbro' it is 
always of importance to keep up in respect of names. 

Whatever may be the cause, Thackeray's biographers 
have had to admit that in 1846 he was unknown except to 
the critics and his own intimate friends. His long struggle 
affords a remarkable contrast to the immediate success of 
his great contemporary and rival, Dickens, who was born 
a year later and whose Pickivick Papers (1836), Thack- 
eray, when he was still hesitating between the pen and the 
pencil, offered (in vain) to illustrate. It was not until 
1847-8 that the publication of Inanity Fair placed Thack- 
eray in a position of acknowledged preeminence, and made 
him independent of the periodicals. Pendennis (1848-50), 
although it takes rank among Thackeray's great novels, has 
weak places, due no doubt to the fact that it was written 
under the strain of severe illness ; it w^as not a popular suc- 
cess, and Thackeray w^as glad of the opportunity- to add to 
his income by a course of lectures, given in London in the 
spring of 1851, on The English Humorists of the 
Eighteenth Century. Among his hearers were Carlyle, 
Dickens, Macaulay, Charlotte Bronte, and other notabili- 
ties, and the series was so successful that it was repeated 
in various parts of Great Britain. In November, 1851, 
he wrote to a friend : ** I am going to take these lectures 



INTRODUCTION 17 

to America, and to make a little fortune out of them, I 
hope, for my little people." As soon as Esmond was pub- 
lished, in October, 1852, Thackeray left Liverpool for 
Boston, the three volumes of the novel being placed in his 
hands just as the vessel sailed. 

Thackeray looked forward to the voyage with a fearful- 
ness which seems almost laughable in these days of safe 
and speedy transatlantic travel ; but he found it not so bad 
as he had expected, and on his arrival in the United States 
he was touched by the genuine kindness and cordiality of 
his reception. Below are given two extracts from letters 
he sent home, the first from New York, the second from 
Baltimore : 

I didn't expect to Hke the people as I do, but am agreeably dis- 
appointed, and find many m.ost pleasant companions, natural and 
good; natural and well read, and well bred, too; and I suppose 
am none the worse pleased because everybody has read all my 

books and praises my lectures Nobody is quiet here, 

no more am I. The rush and restlessness pleases me, and I like, 
for a little, the dash of the stream. 

Now I have seen three great cities — Boston, New York, and 
Philadelphia. I think I like them all mighty well. They ?eem 
to me not so civilized as our London, but more so than Manchester 
and Liverpool. At Boston is a very good literate company, 
indeed ; it is like Edinburgh for that — a vast amount of Toryism 
and donnishness ever3^where. That of New York the simplest and 
least pretentious; it suffices that a man should keep a fine house, 
give parties, and have a daughter, to get all the world to him. 

When Mr. W. B. Reed, of Philadelphia, with whom he 
made a lasting friendship, asked him what were his impres- 
sions of the States, he answered : 

You know what a virtue-proud people we English are. We 
think we have got it all to ourselves. Now that which most 



18 INTRODUCTION 

impresses me here is that I find homes as pure as ours, firesides 
like ours, domestic virtues as gentle; the English language, 
though the accent be a little different, with its home-like melody; 
and the Common Prayer Book in your families. I am more 
struck by pleasant resemblances than by anything else. 

One of the incidents of the great novelist's journey from 
Boston to New York Is told by Thackeray himself in a 
letter written to a Brooklyn boy who asked for his auto- 

S^^P N.York. Sunday Dec. 19 (1852). 

My Dear Sir, — I have very great pleasure in sending you my 
signature ; and am never more grateful than when I hear honest 
boys like my books. I remember the time when 1 was a boy very 
well ; and, now that I have children of my own, love young peo- 
ple all the better; and hope some day that I shall be able to speak 
to them more directly than hitherto I have done. But by that time 
you will be a man, and I hope will prosper. 

As I got into the railroad car to come hither from Boston there 
came up a boy with a basket of books to sell, and he offered me 
one and called out my own name: and I bought the book, pleased 
by his kind face and friendly voice which seemed as it were to 
welcome me and my own children to this country. And as you are 
the first American boy who has written to me I thank you and 
shake you by the hand, and hope Heaven may prosper you. We 
who write books must remember that among our readers are 
honest children, and pray the Father of all of us to enable us to 
see and speak the Truth. Love and Truth are the best of all : 
pray God that young and old we may try and hold by them. 

I thought to write you only a line this Sunday morning; but 
you see it is a little sermon. My own children thousands of miles 
away (it is Sunday night now where they are, and they said 
their prayers for me whilst I was asleep) will like some day to 
sec your little note and be grateful for the kindness you and 
others show me. I bid you farewell and am 

Your faithful Servant, 

W. M. Thackeray.* 

*From J. G. Wilson's Thackeray in the United Stales. 



INTRODUCTION 19 

Thackeray made a favorable impression, both on those 
who had the good fortune to meet him socially, and on 
the larger number who only heard him lecture. Of his 
personal appearance Mr. T. C. Evans wTOte: 

Thackeray looked like a gentleman laid out by Nature on broad 
and generous lines: his head large, and thrown slightly backward 
from his broad, erect shoulders: he had a fresh, clean-shaven look, 
his face rather pale, but with a trace of color. His hair was a 
trifle grayish ; a British whisker, also grayish, ran down in front 
of each ear to his collar; his spectacles were large and insistent, 
and his nose more depressed than that of Michael Angelo after 
the mallet blow of Torrigiano. His gait and movement were 
free and swinging, his dress was of notable neatness and gen- 
tility, and his glance seemed to annex and appropriate everything 
it fell on. 

William CuUen Bryant, reporting the first lecture in 
the New York Evening Post, said: " The building was 
crow^ded to its utmost capacity with the celebrities of litera- 
ture and fashion in this metropolis, all of whom,, we 
believe, left, perfectly united in the opinion that they never 
remembered to have spent an hour more delightfully in 
their lives." G. W. Curtis, looking back upon the lectures 
in after years, exclaims : 

Who that heard is likely to forget them? His huge figure 
filled the pulpit, and the desk was raised so that he could easily 
read his manuscript. He stood erect and perfectly still: his hands 
thrust into his trousers' pockets, or the thumbs and forefingers 
into the waistcoat pockets, and in that deep, melodious and 
flexible voice he read his essays. No purely literary lectures were 
ever half so interesting. As he moved on, his felicitous skill 
flashed out the living form of each man he described like a torch 
upon a statue. Probably most of those who heard him will 
always owe their impression of Fielding, Goldsmith, Addison, 
Swift, Pope, Congreve, and Dick Steele to Thackeray's lectures. 



20 INTRODUCTION 

Thackeray was deeply affected by the appreciation of his 
New York hearers, and at the conclusion of the course 
added the following words of acknowledgment : 

In England it was my custom, after the delivery of these lec- 
tures, to point such a moral as seemed to befit the country I lived 
in, and to protest against an outcry, which some brother authors 
of mine most imprudently and unjustly raise, when they say that 
our profession is neglected and its professors held in light esteem. 
Speaking in this country, I would say that such a complaint could 
not only not be advanced, but could not be even understood here, 
where your men of letters take their manly share in public life ; 
whence Mr. Everett goes as Minister to Washington, and Ban- 
croft and Irving to represent the republic in the old country. And 
if to English authors the English public is, as I believe, kind 
and just in the main, can any of us say, will any who visit your 
country not proudly and gratefully own, with what a cordial and 
generous greeting you receive us? I look round on this great 
company. I think of my gallant young patrons of the Mercantile 
Library Association, as whose servant I appear before you, and 
of the kind hands stretched out to welcome me by men famous 
in letters and honored in our country as in their own, and I 
thank you and them for a most kindly greeting and a most gener- 
ous hospitality. At home, and amongst his own people, it scarce 
becomes an English writer to speak of himself; his public esti- 
mation must depend upon his works; his private esteem on his 
character and his life. But here among friends newly found, I 
ask leave to say that I am thankful ; and I think with a grateful 
heart of those I leave behind me at home, who will be proud of 
the welcome you hold out to me, and will benefit, please God, 
when my days of work are over, by the kindness which you show 
to their father. 

As a result of the lectures in New York and Brooklyn, 
Thackeray was able to deposit five thousand dollars with 
his New York bankers, and an extra lecture on Charity 
and Humor (included in this edition) realized over a 



INTRODUCTION 21 

thousand dollars for a New York charity. The lectures 
were proportionately successful in Boston, Philadelphia, 
and the other large cities Thackeray visited, but in the 
end the prolonged round of hospitality made him melan- 
choly and homesick. In January, he wrote home from 
Philadelphia: 

O ! I am tired of shaking hands with people, and acting the lion 
business night after night. Everybody is introduced and shakes 
hands. I know thousands of colonels, professors, editors, and 
what not, and walk the streets guiltily, knowing that I don't 
know 'em, and trembling lest the man opposite to me is one of my 
friends of the day before. 

In April, he was in New York again, projecting a 
Canadian tour, but the advertisement of a liner one morn- 
ing proved a temptation too strong to be resisted, and, 
bidding a hasty farewell to his friends, he sailed that 
very day. 

His next important publication, The Rose and the Ring 
(1854), was begun to amuse a little American girl, the 
daughter of William Wetmore Story, during her illness 
at Rome ; but the main occupation of the two years imme- 
diately following the first American tour was his great 
novel. The Neivco7Jies, begun at Baden in the summer of 
1853 and finished at Paris in June, 1855. A reference 
in the second chapter of the story to Washington's Ameri- 
can soldiers as " rebels " gave offence, and Thackeray 
wrote to the Athenaum to explain himself, pointing out 
that in England the Americans were called rebels during 
the whole of that contest, and adding: 

Rebels! of course they were rebels; and I should like to know 
what native American would not have been a rebel in that cause. 



22 INTRODUCTION 

As irony is dangerous, and has hurt the feelings of kind friends 
whom I would not wish to offend, let me say, in perfect faith and 
gravity, that I think the cause for which Washington fought 
entirely just and right, and the Champion the very noblest, pur- 
est, bravest, best of God's men. 

In the spring of 1855 Thackeray repeated in London 
his New York lecture on Charity and Humor, and the 
generous reference at the close to Dickens was as gener- 
ously acknowledged by his great contemporary: 

[London] March 23, 1855. 
My dear Thackeray, — I have read in the "Times" to-day an 
account of your last night's lecture, and cannot refrain from 
assuring you, in all truth and earnestness, that I am profoundly 
touched by your generous reference to me. I do not know how 
to tell you what a glow it spread over my heart. Out of its 
fulness I do entreat you to believe that I shall never forget your 
words of commendation. If you could wholly know at once how 
you have moved me and how you have animated me, you would 
be the happier, I am certain. 

Faithfully yours ever, 

Charles Dickens. 

In the fall of 1855 Thackeray paid his second visit to 
this country, to deliver his lectures on The Four Georges. 
Unlike the first course, which had been previously deliv- 
ered in England, these lectures were intended for the 
United States, and finished in New York. Thackeray 
repeated at this second visit his former triumphs, social 
and literary; he was warmly welcomed by his old friends 
and made many new ones. A characteristic incident of 
this second lecture-tour is thus related by his friend Reed : 

On his return to Philadelphia, in the spring of 1856, from the 
south and west, a number of his friends — I as much as anvone — 



INTRODUCTION 23 

urged him, unwisely as it turned out, to repeat his lectures on 
"The Humorists." He was very loath to do it, but finally yielded, 
being, I doubt not, somewhat influenced by the pecuniary induce- 
ments accidentally held out to him. A young bookseller of this 
city offered him a round sum — not very large, but, under the cir- 
cumstances, quite liberal, for the course — which he accepted. The 
experiment was a failure. It was late in the season, with long 
days and shortening nights, and the course was a stale one, and 
the lectures had been printed, and the audiences were thin, and 
the bargain was disastrous, not to him, but to the young gentle- 
man who had ventured it. We were all disappointed and morti- 
fied ; but Thackeray took it good-humoredly ; the only thing that 
seemed to disturb him being his sympathy with the man of busi- 
ness. "I don't mind the empty benches, but I cannot bear to see 
that sad, pale-faced young man as I come out, who is losing 
money on my account." This he used to say at my house when 
he came home to a frugal and not very cheerful supper after the 
lecture. Still the bargain had been fairly made, and was honor- 
ably complied with ; and the money was paid and remitted, 
through my agency, to him at New York. I received no acknowl- 
edgment of the remittance, and recollect well that I felt not a 
little annoyed at this; the more so when, on picking up a news- 
paper, I learned that Thackeray had sailed for home. The day 
after he had gone, when there could be no refusal, I received a 
certificate of deposit on his New York bankers for an amount 
quite sufficient to meet any loss incurred, as he thought, on his 
behalf. 

In the same spirit, during his first tour, Thackeray 
insisted on returning half his fee at Providence, where 
the attendance was small. He wrote home: "Nobody 
must lose money by me in America, where I have had 
such a welcome and hospitality." 

Thackeray's second visit to America had important 
consequences for his life and work. He conceived and 
gathered material for his next novel, The Virginians, 



24 INTRODUCTION 

which was completed after his return and published in 
'1857-9. The radical views expiressed in The Four 
Georges excited some surprise in England, but Thackeray 
did not hesitate to repeat the lectures " straight out from 
the American MS." As a matter of fact, he had always 
held advanced political opinions. As early as 1844 he 
wrote to his mother: 

We are all agog about the adhesion of Lord John and Lord 
Morpeth to the Corn Laws. Peel is to go out, they say, and 
Whigs resume sway. What a lick-spittle of a country it is, where 
a couple of lords who have held aloof from the corn-law battle, 
calmly step in at the end of it, head the party, and take all the 
prize money! What a fine fellow Cobden is. His speech in 
to-day's paper is a model of oratory, I think ; so manly, clear, 
and upright. 

Of the money Thackeray made by his lectures (about 
fifty thousand dollars, more than half of it in the United 
States), he spent part in contesting the city of Oxford 
for parliament in the Liberal interest — unsuccessfully, to 
the great relief of his friends. 

The closing chapter of Thackeray's life may be very 
briefly told. In 1860 he found a new interest in editing, 
with remarkable success, the newly founded Cornhill 
Magazine, for which he wrote two novels, Lovel the 
Widower and The Adventures of Philip, as well as The 
Roundabout Papers, which contain some of his best occa- 
sional essays. But he was too soft-hearted to reject con- 
tributions from deserving but incompetent contributors, 
to whom he sent money out of his own pocket rather than 
disappoint them ; and he was glad to hand over the cares 
of editorship to his son-in-law, Leslie Stephen, in order to 



INTRODUCTION 25 

devote all his energies to his last novel, Denis Duval, in 
which he seemed to be recovering his old verve and skill. 
But it was still unfinished when, on Christmas Eve, 1863, 
the great novelist w^as found dead in bed. His death at 
this season recalled to many of his admirers his own 
Christmas lines : 

My song, save this, is little worth; 

I lay the weary pen aside, • 
And wish you health, and love, and mirth, 

As fits the solemn Christmas-tide, 
As fits the holy Christmas birth. 

Be this, good friends, our carol still, — 
Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, 

To men of gentle will ! 



II 



The satirical bent of Thackeray's genius made him 
much misunderstood. Early disappointments, domestic 
calamity, and persistent ill-health saddened his life, and 
his keen insight into character prevented him from accept- 
ing the superficial views of human benevolence which 
often pass current in the w^orld. But he was essentially 
kind-hearted, and of an affectionate disposition. Many 
stories are told of his unfailing and considerate generosity 
to people in distress; and his devotion to children in gen- 
eral — and to his own in particular — was often 
remarked. Mr. Hodder, who accompanied Thackeray 
on his second American tour as his secretary, bears wit- 
ness to the difficulty with which the great novelist 
restrained his emotion on parting from his two daugh- 



26 INTRODUCTION 

ters. His " girls," as he used to call them, were con- 
stantly in his thoughts; and it was to making provision 
for them that all the efforts of his later life were directed. 
In one of his best poems. The White Squall, he wrote: 

And when, its force expended, 
The harmless storm was ended. 
And as the sunrise splendid 

Came blushing o'er the sea, 
I thought, as day was breaking, 
My little girls were waking. 
And smiling, and making 

A prayer at home for me. 

Thackeray was a sincerely religious man, as many 
passages in his writings show. The year before he died, 
on moving into a new house he had built, he entered in 
his diary this prayer: 

I pray Almighty God that the words I write in this house may 
be pure and honest; that they may be dictated by no personal 
spite, unworthy motive, or unjust greed for gain; that they may 
tell the truth as far as I know it; and tend to promote love and 
peace amongst men, for the sake of Christ our Lord. 

Thackeray had many friends, and those w^ho knew him 
best were the first to resent the charge of cynicism some- 
times urged against him. It was this baseless charge 
which was answered at the time of his death by one of 
his old comrades on the staff of Punch: 

He was a cynic: by his life all wrought 

Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways; 

His heart wide open to all kindly thought, 

His hand so quick to give, his tongue to praise. 



INTRODUCTION 27 

He was a cynic: you might read it writ 

In that broad brow, crowned with its silver hair; 

In those blue eyes, with childlike candor lit. 
In that sweet smile his lips were wont to wear. 

He was a cynic: by the love that clung 

About him from his children, friends and kin : 

By the sharp pain light pen and gossip tongue 
Wrought in him, chafing the soft heart within. 

He was a cynic: let his books confess — 

His Dobhi7i's silent love; or yet more rare, 

His Ne^come's chivalry and simpleness; 
His Little Sister's life of loving care. 

Through Vanity's bright flaunting fair he walked, 
Making the puppets dance, the jugglers play; 

Saw Virtue tripping, honest effort balked. 

And sharpened wit on roguery's downward way; 

And told us what he saw; and if he smiled. 
His smile had more of sadness than of mirth — 

But more of love than either. Undefiled, 
Gentle, alike by accident of birth. 

And gift of courtesy and grace of love. 

When shall his friends find such another friend? 

For them, and for his children, God above 

Has comfort. Let us bow: God knows the end. 

As a matter of fact, Thackeray was, as a French critic 
pointed out long ago, less of a cynic than a sentimentalist 
in the better sense of the word — that is, he had more 
than usual sympathy for innocence, and goodness, — and 
he would no doubt have indulged his natural vein of 
sentiment more freely in his wTitings if it had not been 
kept in check by his stern regard for truth. " To tell the 
truth as far as I know it " was the aim he constantly set 



28 INTRODUCTION 

before himself. '' If my tap is not genuine, it is naught, 
and no one should give himself the trouble to drink it." 
" It's generally best to understand perfectly what you 
mean,, and to express your meaning clearly afterwards, in 
the simpler words the better " — herein lies no small part 
of the charm of his stjle, which is absolutely free from 
affectation and self-consciousness. He could say fear- 
lessly: ^ , ^ . n 

Stranger! I never writ a flattery, 

Nor signed a page that registered a lie. 

But his devotion to truth did not prevent his essential 
kindliness from being apparent, both to his friends and 
to the discerning reader. It was this that won for him 
the praise of that severest of judges, Thomas Carlyle: 
'' He had many fine qualities; no guile or malice against 
any mortal." When James Hannay, who annotated the 
first edition of the English Humorists for him, attempted 
to modify the unfavorable opinion expressed in the lec- 
tures of the character of Swift, Thackeray wrote: 

You haven't made me alter my opinion. I admire, or rather 
admit, his power as much as you do; but I don't admire that 
kind of power so much as I did fifteen years ago, or twenty shall 
wc say. Love is a higher intellectual exercise than Hatred: and 
when you get one or two more of those young ones you write so 
pleasantly about, you'll come over to the side of the kind wags, 
I think, rather than the cruel ones. 

It is characteristic of Thackeray that in the Humorists 
he made it his object, as he himself says, " rather to 
describe the men than their works; or to deal with the 
latter only in as far as they seem to illustrate the char- 
acter of their writers." Men rather than books, and 
hearts rather than minds, were what interested him. 



INTRODUCTION 29 

Thackeray had little respect for purely intellectual power ; 
and he had a wholesome reverence for goodness and kind- 
ness, even when accompanied by stupidity. This is the 
explanation of his severe judgments of Swift and Sterne; 
the cynicism of the former, and the petty vices of the 
latter were alike intolerable to him. He was nearer in 
sympathy to the kind-hearted, though erring, Dick Steele ; 
to the pious Addison; to the thriftless, vain, but gentle 
Goldsmith; and above all, to the " brave, generous, truth- 
telling " Fielding. Thackeray had not the modern 
scholar's craze for accuracy, and his lectures have been 
corrected in some points of detail. His appreciation of 
Swift is insufficient, as indeed are all attempts to under- 
stand fully that great and mysterious genius ; his appraisal 
of Pope errs perhaps on the other side of undue gentle- 
ness. But, taken as a whole, the English Humorists is 
an admirable example of Thackeray's great-hearted sym- 
pathy and keen insight into human excellence and human 
frailty. The power which made Vanity Fair the greatest 
picture of the society of his time, in its strength as well 
as in its weakness, the knowledge of the eighteenth cen- 
tury which made Esmond the most perfect of historical 
novels, are exhibited in the Humorists, on a smaller scale 
it is true, for the canvas is smaller, but with unerring 
fidelity, right feeling, and sureness of touch. There is 
no scorn, except of baseness and cruelty; and even when 
the satirist laughs at the frailties of poor humanity, there 
is tenderness behind. An Irishman once reproached 
Thackeray for always making fun of the Irish, adding 
" you don't like us." Thackeray's eyes filled with tears 
as he thought of his wife — born in County Cork — and 



30 INTRODUCTION 

turning away his head, he exclaimed: "God help me! 
all that I have loved best in the world is Irish." 

That is w^hy Thackeray says that Swift was no Irish- 
man ; his "heart was English." And yet, how quick 
Thackeray is to respond to the pathetic words of Swift, 
which recall his love for Stella, — 0?ily a woman's hair 
— " only love,, only fidelity, only purity, innocence, beauty; 
only the tenderest heart in the world stricken and 
wounded, and passed away now out of reach of pangs 
of hope deferred, love insulted, and pitiless desertion : — 
only that lock of hair left; and memory and remorse, for 
the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over the grave of 
his victim." 

On themes such as this Thackeray could rise from his 
simple, easy, natural style to heights of noble eloquence; 
and he carries his readers with him all the more readily 
because he does not often appeal to the more obvious 
springs of pathos. His moral and religious feelings were 
deep-seated — guiding principles of life, not precepts to 
be uttered to any chance comer, on every occasion. But 
no moralist gives us saner views of life and conduct; and 
thoughtful youth can find no sounder, as well as no more 
delightful guide. 

Come wealth or want, come good or ill, 

Let young and old accept their part, 
And bow before the Awful Will, 

And bear it with an honest heart, 
Who misses or who wins the prize. 

Go lose or conquer as you can ; 
But if you fail, or if you rise, 

Be each, pray God, a gentleman. 

— The End of the Play. 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE OF 
THACKERAY'S LIFE 

1811. Born at Calcutta, 

1817. Came to England. 

1822-8. Charterhouse. 

1829-30. Trinity College, Cambridge. 

1830. Weimar. 

1831. Middle Temple. 
1833-4. The National Standard. 
1836-7. The Constitutional. 
1836. Marriage. 

1838. Yellowplush Correspondence in Erasers Mag- 

azine. 

1840. Paris Sketch Book. 
Mrs. Thackeray's illness. 

1841. History of Samuel Titmarsh. 
The Great Hoggarty Diamond. 
Punch founded. 

1843. Irish Sketch Book. 

1844. Barry Lyndon. 
1846. Cornhill to Cairo. 
1847-8. Vanity Fair. 
1848-50. Pendennis. 

1851. Lectures on English Humorists in London. 

31 



Z2 CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE OF THACKERAY'S LIFE 



1852. 


Esmond. 


1852-3. 


First visit to the United States. 


1853-5. 


The Newcomes. 


1854. 


The Rose and the Ring. 


1855-6. 


The Four Georges — second 




United States. 


1857. 


Oxford Candidature. 


1857-9. 


The Virginians. 


1860. 


Cornhill Magazine started. 


1861-2. 


The Adventures of Philip. 


1860-3. 


Roundabout Papers. 


1863. 


Died December 24. 


1864. 


Denis Duval (unfinished). 



tour in the 



A FEW USEFUL BOOKS FOR STUDENTS OF 
THACKERAY 

Biographical Edition of the Works of W. M. Thack- 
era3^ 

Life, by Sir Leslie Stephen, in the Dictionary of 
National Biography (reprinted in the above). 

A Collection of Letters by IV. M. Thackeray, 1817-55. 

H. Merivale and F. T. Marzials — Life of Thackeray. 

Lewis Melville — Life of Thackeray. 

G. K. Chesterton — Thackeray. 

C. Whibley — Thackeray. 

Eyre Crowe — With Thackeray in America. 

J. G. Wilson — Thackeray in the United States. 



THE 

ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

OF THE 

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

OF THE 

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



LECTURE THE FIRST 



SWIFT 

In treating of the English Humorists of the past age, 
it is of the men and of their lives, rather than of their 
books, that I ask permission to speak to you ; and in doing 
so, you are aware that I cannot hope to entertain you with 
a merely humorous or facetious story. Harlequin without 
his mask is known to present a very sober countenance, 
and was himself, the story goes, the melancholy patient 
whom the doctor advised to go and see Harlequin, — a 
man full of cares and perplexities like the rest of us, 
whose self must always be serious to him, under what- 
ever mask or disguise or uniform he presents it to the 
public. And as all of you here must needs be grave when 
you think of your own past and present, you will not look 
to find in the histories of those whose lives and feelings 
I am going to try and describe to you a story that is other- 
wise than serious, and often very sad. If humor only 
meant laughter, you would scarcely feel more interest 
about humorous writers than about the private life of poor 
Harlequin just mentioned, who possesses in common with 
these the power of making you laugh ; but the men regard- 

35 



36 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

ing whose lives and stories your kind presence here shows 
that you have curiosity and sympathy, appeal to a great 
number of our other faculties besides our mere sense of 
ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken and 

5 direct 5'our love, your pity, your kindness — your scorn 
for untruth, pretention, imposture — your tenderness for 
the weak., the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the 
best of his means and ability he comments on all the ordi- 
nary actions and passions of life almost. He takes upon 

10 himself to be the week-day preacher, so to speak. Accord- 
ingly, as he finds and speaks and feels the truth best, we 
regard him, esteem him, — sometimes love him ; and as 
his business is to mark other people's lives and peculiarities, 
we moralize upon his life when he has gone, — and yes- 

13 terday's preacher becomes the text for to-day's sermon. 

Of English parents and of a good English family of 
clergymen. Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, seven 
months after the death of his father, who had come to 
practice there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at 

20 Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, 
where he got a degree with difficulty, and was wild and 
witty and poor. In 1688, by the recommendation of his 
mother, Swift was received into the family of Sir William 
Temple, who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left 

•--. his patron in 1693, and the next j-ear took orders in Dub- 
lin ; but he threw up the small Irish preferment which he 
got, and returned to Temple, in whose family he remained 
until Sir William's death in 1699. His hopes of advance- 
ment in England failing. Swift returned to Ireland, and 

s.. took the living of Laracor. Hither he invited Hester 



SWIFT 37 

Johnson, Temple's natural daughter, with vvhom he had 
contracted a tender friendship while they were both 
dependents of Temple's; and with an occasional visit to 
England, Swift now passed nine years at home. 

In 1709 he came to England, and with a brief visit to 
Ireland, during which he took possession of his deanery of 
Saint Patrick, he now passed five years in England, taking 
the most distinguished part in the political transactions 
which terminated with the death of Queen Anne. After 
her death, his party disgraced, and his hopes of ambition 
over. Swift returned to Dublin, where he remained twelve 
years. In this time he wrote the famous " Drapier's Let- 
ters " and " Gulliver's Travels." He married Hester 
Johnson (Stella), and buried Esther Vanhomrigh 
(Vanessa), who had followed him to Ireland from Lon- 
don, where she had contracted a violent passion for him. 
In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, which he quitted 
for the last time on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella 
died in Januarj^, 1728, and Swift not until 1745, having 
passed the last five of the seventy-eight years of his life 
with an impaired intellect and keepers to watch him. 

You know, of course, that Swift has had many biogra- 
phers ; his life has been told by the kindest and most good- 
natured of men, Scott, who admires but cannot bring him- 
self to love him; and by stout old Johnson, who, forced 
to admit him into the company of poets, receives the 
famous Irishman, and takes off his hat to him with a bow 
of surly recognition, scans him from head to foot, and 
passes over to the other side of the street. Doctor Wilde 
of Dublin, who has written a most interesting volume on 
the closing years of Switt's life, calls Johnson " the most 



38 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

malignant of his biographers." It is not easy for an 
English critic to please Irishmen, — perhaps to try and 
please them. And yet Johnson truly admires Swift : John- 
son does not quarrel with Swift's change of politics, or 
doubt his sincerity of religion : about the famous Stella 
and Vanessa controversy the Doctor does not bear very 
hardly on Swift. But he could not give the Dean that 
honest hand of his; the stout old man puts it into his 
breast, and moves off from him. 

Would we have liked to live with him? That is a ques- 
tion which, in dealing with these people's works, and 
thinking of their lives and peculiarities, every reader of 
biographies must put to himself. Would 50U have liked 
to be a friend of the great Dean? I should like to have 
been Shakspere's shoe-black, — just to have lived in his 
house, just to have worshipped him, — to have run on his 
errands, and seen that sweet, serene face. I should like, 
as a young man, to have lived on Fielding's staircase in the 
Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and 
opening his door with his latchkey, to have shaken hands 
with him in the morning, and heard him talk and crack 
jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Who 
would not give something to pass a night at the club with 
Johnson and Goldsmith and James Boswell, Esquire, of 
Auchinleck? The charm of Addison's companionship and 
conversation has passed to us by fond tradition. But 
Swift? If you had been his inferior in parts (and that, 
with a great respect for all persons present, I fear is only 
very likely), his equal in mere social station, he would 
have bullied, scorned, and insulted you; if, undeterred by 
his great reputation, you had met him like a man, he 



SWIFT 39 

would have quailed before you, and not had the pluck to 
reply, and gone home, and years after written a foul epi- 
gram about you, — watched for you in a sewer, and come 
out to assail you with a coward's blow and a dirty bludg- 
eon. If you had been a lord with a blue ribbon, who 
flattered his vanity or could help his ambition, he would 
have been the most delightful company in the world; he 
would have been so manly, so sarcastic,, so bright, odd, 
and original, that you might think he had no object in 
view but the indulgence of his humor, and that he was 
the most reckless, simple creature in the world. How he 
would have torn your enemies to pieces for you, and made 
fun of the Opposition! His servility was so boisterous 
that it looked like independence. He would have done 
jour errands, but with the air of patronizing you; and 
after fighting your battles, masked, in the street or the 
press, w^ould have kept on his hat before your wife and 
daughters in the drawing-room, content to take that sort 
of pay for his tremendous services as a bravo. 

He says as much himself in one of his letters to Boling- 
broke: — "All my endeavors to distinguish myself were 
only for want of a great title and fortune, that I might 
be used like a lord by those who have an opinion of my 
parts; whether right or wrong is no great matter. And 
so the reputation of wit and great learning does the office 
of a blue ribbon or a coach-and-six." 

Could there be a greater candor? It is an outlaw who 
says, " These are my brains ; with these I'll win titles 
and compete with fortune. These are my bullets; these 
I'll turn into gold;" and he hears the sound of coaches 
and six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes society 



40 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

stand and deliver. They are all on their knees before 
him. Down go my Lord Bishop's apron, and his 
Grace's blue ribbon., and my Lady's brocade petticoat in 
the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a 
patent place, the third of a little snug post about the 
Court, and gives them over to followers of his own. 
The great prize has not come yet. The coach with the 
mitre and crozier in it, which he intends to have for his 
share, has been delayed on the way from Saint James's; 
and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners 
come and tell him that the coach has taken a different 
road, and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air 
with a curse, and rides away into his own country. 

Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a 
moral or adorn a tale of ambition as any hero's that ever 
lived and failed. But we must remember that the moral- 
ity was lax ; that other gentlemen besides himself took the 
road in his day; that public society was in a strange, dis-. 
ordered condition, and the State was ravaged by other 
condottieri. The Boyne was being fought and won, and 
lost; the bells rang in William's victory in the very same 
tone with which they would have pealed for James's. 
Men were loose upon politics, and had to shift for them- 
selves; they, as well as old beliefs and institutions, had 
lost their moorings and gone adrift in the storm. As in 
the South Sea Bubble, almost everybody gambled; as in 
the Railway mania, not many centuries ago, almost every 
one took his unlucky share. A man of that time of the 
vast talents and ambition of Swift could scarce do other- 
wise than grasp at his prize, and make his spring at his op- 
portunity. His bitterness, his scorn, his rage, his subsequent 



SWIFT 41 

misanthropy, are ascribed by some panegyrists to a delib- 
erate conviction of mankind's unworthiness, and a desire 
to amend them by castigation. His youth was bitter, as 
that of a great genius bound down by ignoble ties and 
powerless in a mean dependence; his age was bitter, like 
that of a great genius that had fought the battle and nearly 
won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards writhing 
in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to the gods, if he 
likes, what is caused by his own fury or disappointment 
or self-will. What public man, what statesman project- 
ing a coup, what king determined on an invasion of his 
neighbor, what satirist meditating an onslaught on society 
or an individual, cannot give a pretext for his move? 
There was a French general the other day who proposed 
to march into this country and put it to sack and pillage, 
in revenge for humanity outraged by our conduct at 
Copenhagen. There is always some excuse for men of 
the aggressive turn ; they are of their nature warlike, 
predatory, eager for fight, plunder, dominion. 

As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck, as strong a 
wing as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, 
that fate wrested the prey out of his claws, and cut his 
wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not without 
awe and pity, at the lonely eagle chained behind the bars. 

That Swift was born at No. 7 Hoey's Court, Dublin, 
on the 30th November, 1667, is a certain fact of which 
nobody will deny the sister island the honor and glory; 
but it seems to me he was no more an Irishman than a 
man born of English parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo. 
Goldsmith was an Irishman, and always an Irishman ; 
Steele was an Irishman, and always an Irishman; Swift's 



42 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

heart was English and in England, his habits English, his 
logic eminently English. His statement is elaborately 
simple; he shuns tropes and metaphors, and uses his ideas 
and words with a wise thrift and economy, as he used his 
money, — with which he could be generous and splendid 
upon great occasions, but which he hu'^banded when there 
was no need to spend it. He never indulges in needless 
extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, profuse imagery; 
he lays his opinion before you with a grave simplicity and 
a perfect neatness. Dreading ridicule, too, as a man of 
his humor — above all, an Englishman of his humor — 
certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power 
which he really possessed. One often fancies in reading 
him that he dares not be eloquent when he might; that 
he does not speak above his voice, as it were, and the tone 
of society. 

His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, 
his knowledge of polite life, his acquaintance with litera- 
ture even, which he could not have pursued very sedu- 
lously during that reckless career at Dublin, Swift got 
under the roof of Sir William Temple. He was fond 
of telling in after life what quantities of books he devoured 
there, and how King William taught him to cut aspara- 
gus in the Dutch fashion. It was at Shene and at Moor 
Park, with a salary of twenty pounds and a dinner at the 
upper servants' table, that this great and lonely Swift 
passed a ten years' apprenticeship, w^ore a cassock that w^as 
only not a livery, bent down a knee as proud as Lucifer's 
to supplicate my Lady's good graces, or run on his Honor's 
errands. It w^as here, as he was writing at Temple's table 
or following his patron's w^alk, that he saw and heard the 



SWIFT 43 

men who had governed the great world, — measured him- 
self with them, looking up from his silent corner, gauged 
their brains,, weighed their wits, turned them and tried 
them and marked them. Ah, what platitudes he must 
have heard, what feeble jokes, what pompous common- 
places! What small men they must have seemed under 
those enormous periwigs to the swarthy, uncouth, silent 
Irish secretary! I wonder whether it ever struck Temple 
that that Irishman was his master? I suppose that dismal 
conviction did not present itself under the ambrosial w^ig, 
or Temple could never have lived with Swift. Swift 
sickened, rebelled, left the service, — ate humble pie, and 
came back again ; and so for ten years went on, gathering 
learning, swallowing scorn, and submitting with a stealthy 
rage to his fortune. 

Temple's style is the perfection of practised and eas> 
good-breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into 
a subject, he professes a very gentlemanly acquaintance 
with it; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the 
custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman 
to envelop his head in a periwig and his hands in lace 
ruffles. If he wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he 
steps in them with a consummate grace, and you never 
hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's 
train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that 
grows too hot or too agitated for him,, he politely leaves 
it; he retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park, and 
lets the King's party and the Prince of Orange's party 
battle it out among themselves. He reveres the sovereign 
(and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so 
elegant a bow); he admires the Prince of Orange; but 



44 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves more 
than all the princes in Christendom, and that valuable 
member of society is himself, — Gulielmus Temple, 
Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat, between his 
study-chair and his tulip-beds, clipping his apricots and 
pruning his essays, — the statesman, the ambassador no 
more, but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentle- 
man and courtier at Saint James's as at Shene ; where, in 
place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the 
Ciceronian majesty, or ^^'alks a minuet with the Epic 
Muse, or dallies by the south wall with the ruddy nymph 
of gardens. 

Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigous 
deal of veneration from his household, and to have been 
coaxed and warmed and cuddled by the people round 
about him as delicately as any of the plants which he 
loved. When he fell ill in 1693, the household was 
aghast at his indisposition ; mild Dorothea his wife, the 
best companion of the best of men, — 

" Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great. 
Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate." 

As for Dorinda, his sister, — 

"Those who would grief describe might come and trace 
Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. 
To see her weep, joy every face forsook, 
And grief flung sables on each menial look. 
The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul 
That furnished spirit and motion through the whole." 

Is not that line in which grief is described as putting 
the menials into a mourning livery a fine image? One 
of the menials wrote it, who did not like that Temple 
livery nor those twenty-pound wages. Cannot one fancy 



SWIFT 45 

the uncouth young servitor, with downcast eyes, books 
and papers in hand, following at his Honor's heels in the 
garden walk, or taking his Honor's orders as he stands by 
the great chair, where Sir William has the gout, and his 
feet all blistered with moxa? When Sir William has the 
gout or scolds, it must be hard work at the second table; 
the Irish secretary owned as much afterwards ; and when 
he came to dinner, how he must have lashed and growled 
and torn the household with his gibes and scorn ! What 
would the steward say about the pride of them Irish 
schollards, — and this one had got no great credit even 
at his Irish college, if the truth were known, — and what 
a contempt his Excellency's own gentleman must have had 
for Parson Teague from Dublin! (The valets and chap- 
lains were always at war. It is hard to say which Swift 
thought the more contemptible.) And what must have 
been the sadness, the sadness and terror, of the house- 
keeper's little daughter, with the curling black ringlets 
and the sweet smiling face, when the secretary who teaches 
her to read and write, and whom she loves and reverences 
above all things, — above mother, above mild Dorothea, 
above that tremendous Sir William in his square toes and 
periwig, — when Mr. Sii'ift comes down from his master 
with rage in his heart, and has not a kind word even for 
little Hester Johnson? 

Perhaps for the Irish secretary his Excellency's conde- 
scension was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir Wil- 
liam ivould perpetually quote Latin and the ancient classics 
a propos of his gardens and his Dutch statues and plates- 
bandes, and talk about Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, 
Julius Caesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hes- 



46 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

perides, Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the 
Assyrian kings. A propos of beans, he would " mention 
Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that this 
precept probably meant that wise men should abstain from 
public affairs. He is a placid Epicurean ; he is 3, Pytha- 
gorean philosopher; he is a wise man, — that is the deduc- 
tion. Does not Sw^ift think so? One can imagine the 
downcast eyes lifted up for a moment, and the flash of 
scorn which they emit. Swift's ejes were as azure as the 
heavens. Pope says nobly (as ever\^thing Pope said and 
thought of his friend was good and noble), "His eyes 
are as azure as the heavens, and have a charming archness 
in them;" and one person in that household — that pomp- 
ous, stately, kindly Moor Park — saw heaven nowhere 
else. 

But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree 
w^ith Swift. He was half killed with a surfeit of Shene 
pippins; and in a garden-seat which he devised for himself 
at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedily the stock 
of books w^ithin his reach, he caught a vertigo and deaf- 
ness which punished and tormented him through life. He 
could not bear the place or the servitude. Even in that 
poem of courtly condolence, from which we have quoted 
a few lines of mock melancholy, he breaks out of the 
funereal procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and 
rushes away crying his own grief, cursing his own fate, 
foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune and even 
hope. 

I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter 
to Temple, in w4iich, after having broken from his bond- 
age, the poor wretch crouches piteously towards his cage 



SWIFT 47 

again, and deprecates his master's anger. He asks for 
testimonials for orders. 

" The particulars required of me are what relate to morals and 
learning, and the reasons of quitting your Honor's family, — that 
is, whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They are 
left entirely to your Honor's mercy, though in the first I think I 
cannot reproach myself for anything further than for infirmities. 
This is all I dare a't present beg from your Honor, under circum- 
stances of life not worth your regard. What is left me to wish 
(next to the health and prosperity of your Honor and family) is 
that Heaven would one day allow me the opportunity of leaving 
my acknowledgments at your feet. I beg my most humble duty 
and service be presented to my ladies, your Honor's lady and 
sister." 

Can prostration fall deeper ? Could a slave bow lower ? 
Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet, describing 
the same man, saj^s: — 

" Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house and had a bow from 
everybody but me. When I came to the antechamber [at Court] 
to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk 
and business. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to 
his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a place for a clergyman. 
He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake, with my Lord 
Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of £200 per annum as 
member of the English Church at Rotterdam. . He stopped F. 
Gwynne, Esquire, going into the Queen with the red bag, and 
told him aloud he had something to say to him from my Lord 
Treasurer. He took out his gold watch, and telling the time of 
day complained that it was very late. A gentleman said he was 
too fast. ' How can 1 help it,' says the Doctor, ' if the courtiers 
give me a watch that won't go right?' Then he instructed a 
young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope 
(a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English, 
for which he would have them all subscribe ; ' for,' says he, ' he 



48 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.' 
Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room, 
beckoning Doctor Swift to follow him. Both went off just before 
prayers." 

There's a little malice in the Bishop's " just before 
prayers." 

This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and 
is harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing 
good, and to deserving men too, in the midst of these 
intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand 
anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. 
His hand was constantly stretched out to relieve an honest 
man ; he was cautious about his money, but ready. If you 
were in a strait, would you like such a benefactor? I 
think I would rather have had a potato and a friendly 
word from Goldsmith than have been beholden to the 
Dean for a guinea and a dinner. He insulted a man as 
he served him, made women cry, guests look foolish , 
bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into 
poor men's faces. No ; the Dean was no Irishman — no 
Irishman ever gave but with a kind word and a kind 
heart. 

It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean 
of St. Patrick's performed his family devotions every 
morning regularly, but with such secrecy that the guests 
in his house were never in the least aware of the ceremony. 
There was no need surely why a church dignitary should 
assemble his family privily in a crypt, and as if he w^as 
afraid of heathen persecution. But I think the world was 
right; and the bishops who advised Queen Anne, when 
they counselled her not to appoint the author of the ** Tale 



SWIFT 49 

of a Tub " to a bishopric, gave perfectl)' good advice. The 
man who wrote the arguments and illustrations in that 
wild book could not but be aware what must be the sequel 
of the propositions which he laid down. The boon com- 
panion of Pope and Bolingbroke, who chose these as the 
friends of his life and the recipients of his confidence and 
affection,, must have heard many an argument and joined 
in many a conversation over Pope's port, or St. John's 
burgundy, which would not bear to be repeated at other 
men's boards. 

I know of few things more conclusive as to the sincerity 
of Swift's religion than his advice to poor John Gay to 
turn clergyman, and look out for a seat on the Bench. 
Gay, the author of the '' Beggar's Opera;" Gay, the wild- 
est of the wits about town, — it was this man that Jona- 
than Swift advised to take orders, to invest in a cassock 
and bands, just as he advised him to husband his shillings 
and put his thousand pounds out at interest. The Queen 
and the bishops and the world were right in mistrusting 
the religion of that man. 

I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's religious 
views except in so far as they influence his literary charac- 
ter, his life, his humor. The most notorious sinners of all 
those fellow-mortals vrhom it is our business to discuss — 
Harry Fielding and Dick Steele — were especially loud, 
and I believe really fervent, in their expressions of belief ; 
they belabored freethinkers, and stoned imaginary atheists 
on all sorts of occasions, going out of their way to bawl 
their own creed and persecute their neighbor's ; and if they 
sinned and stumbled, as they constantly did with debt, 
with drink, with all sorts of bad behavior, they got upon 



50 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

their knees and cried " Peccavi " with a most sonorous 
orthodox). Yes, poor Harr\' Fielding and poor Dick 
Steele were trusty and undoubting Church of England 
men ; they abhorred popery, atheism, and wooden shoes and 
idolatries in general, and hiccupped Church and State with 
fervor. 

But Swift? His mind had had a different schooling, and 
possessed a very different logical power. He was not bred 
up in a tipsy guardroom, and did not learn to reason in a 
Covent Garden tavern. He could conduct an argument 
from beginning to end ; he could see forward with a fatal 
clearness. In his old age, looking at the '' Tale of a Tub," 
when he said, " Good God! what a genius I had when I 
wrote that book!" I think he was admiring, not the 
genius, but the consequences to which the genius had 
brought him, — a vast genius, a magnificent genius, a 
genius wonderfully bright and dazzling and strong, — to 
seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood and scorch 
it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden motives and 
expose the black thoughts of men, — an awful, an evil 
spirit. 

Ah, man! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's library; 
you, w^hose friends were Pope and St. John, — what made 
5^ou to swear to fatal vows, and bind yourself to a life-long 
hypocrisy before the Heaven which you adored with such 
real wonder, humility, and reverence? For Swift's w^as 
a reverent, was a pious spirit; for Swift could love and 
could pray. Through the storms and tempests of his 
furious mind the stars of religion and love break out in 
the blue, shining serenely, though hidden by the driving 
clouds and the maddened hurricane of his life. 



SWIFT 51 

It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from the con- 
sciousness of his own scepticism, and that he had bent his 
pride so far down as to put his apostasy out to hire. The 
paper left behind him, called " Thoughts on Religion," 
is merely a set of excuses for not professing disbelief. He 
says of his sermons that he preached pamphlets. They 
have scarce a Christian characteristic; they might be 
preached from the steps of a synagogue, or the floor of a 
mosque, or the box of a coffee-house almost. There is lit- 
tle or no cant, — he is too great and too proud for that ; 
and in so far as the badness of his sermons goes, he is hon- 
est. But having put that cassock on., it poisoned him; he 
was strangled in his bands. He goes through life tearing, 
like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in the 
Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and 
knows that the night will come and the inevitable hag 
with it. What a night, my God, it was! what a lonely 
rage and long agony! what a vulture that tore the heart 
of that giant ! It is awful to think of the great sufferings 
of this great man. Through life he always seems alone, 
somehow. Goethe was so. I cannot fancy Shakspere 
otherwise. The giants must live apart ; the kings can have 
no company. But this man suffered so, and deserved so 
to suffer ! One hardly reads anywhere of such a pain. 

The " saeva indignatio " of which he spoke as lacerat- 
ing his heart, and which he dares to inscribe on his tomb- 
stone (as if the wretch who lay under that stone, waiting 
God's judgment, had a right to be angry), breaks out from 
him in a thousand pages of his writings, and tears and 
rends him. Against men in office, he having been over- 
thrown ; against men in England, he having lost his chance 



52 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

of preferment there, the furious exile never fails to rage 
and curse. Is it fair to call the famous " Drapier's Let- 
ters " patriotism? They are masterpieces of dreadful 
humor and invective; they are reasoned logically enough 
too, but the proposition is as monstrous and fabulous as the 
Lilliputian island. It is not that the grievance is so great, 
but there is his enemy. The assault is wonderful for its 
activity and terrible rage; it is Samson, with a bone in his 
hand, rushing on his enemies and felling them. One 
admires not the cause, so much as the strength, the anger, 
the fury of the champion. As is the case with madmen, 
certain subjects provoke him, and awaken his fits of wrath. 
Marriage is one of these. In a hundred passages in his 
writings he rages against it ; "rages against children. An 
object of constant satire, even more contemptible in his 
eyes than a lord's chaplain, is a poor curate with a large 
family. The idea of this luckless paternity never fails to 
bring down from him gibes and foul language. Could 
Dick Steele or Goldsmith or Fielding, in his most reckless 
moment of satire, have written anything like the Dean's 
famous " Modest Proposal" for eating children? Not one 
of these but melts at the thoughts of childhood, fondles 
and caresses it. Mr. Dean has no such softness, and enters 
the nursery with the tread and gaiety of an ogre. *' I 
have been assured," says he, in the " Modest Proposal," 
"by a very know^ing American of my acquaintance in 
London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a 
year old a niost delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, 
whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled ; and I make no 
doubt it will equally serve in a ragout." And taking up 
this pretty joke, as his way is, he argues it with perfect 



SWIFT 53 

gravity and logic. He turns and twists this subject in a 
score of different ways: he hashes it, and he serves it up 
cold, and he garnishes it, and relishes it alwajs. He 
describes the little animal as *' dropped from its dam," 
advising that the mother should let it suck plentifully in 
the last month, so as to render it plump and fat for a good 
table! "A child, '^ says his Reverence, "will make two 
dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the fam- 
ily dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a rea- 
sonable dish," and so on. And the subject being so 
delightful that he cannot leave it, he proceeds to recom- 
mend, in place of venison for squires' tables, " the bodies 
of young lads and maidens not exceeding fourteen or 
under twelve." Amiable humorist! laughing castigator 
of morals ! There was a process w^ell known and practised 
in the Dean's gay days: when a lout entered the coffee- 
house, the wags proceeded to what they called " roasting " 
him. This is roasting a subject with a vengeance. The 
Dean had a native genius for it. As the "Almanach des 
Gourmands " says, " On nait rotisseur." 

And it was not merely by the sarcastic method that 
Swift exposed the unreasonableness of loving and having 
children. In " Gulliver," the folly of love and marriage 
is urged by graver arguments and advice. In the famous 
Lilliputian kingdom. Swift speaks with approval of the 
practice of instantly removing children from their parents 
and educating them by the State; and among his favorite 
horses, a pair of foals are stated to be the very utmost a 
well-regulated equine couple would permit themselves. 
In fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal 
love was unadvisable, and illustrated the theory by his own 



54 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

practice and example — God help him ! — which made 
him about the most wretched being in God's world. 

The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition, 
as exemplified in the cannibal proposal just mentioned, is 
our author's constant method through all his works of 
humor. Given a country of people six inches or sixty feet 
high, and by the mere process of the logic a thousand won- 
derful absurdities are evolved at so many stages of the cal- 
culation. Turning to the First Minister w^ho waited behind 
him with a white staff near as tall as the mainmast of the 
" Royal Sovereign," the King of Brobdingnag observes 
how contemptible a thing human grandeur is, as repre- 
sented by such a contemptible little creature as Gulliver. 
** The Emperor of Lilliput's features are strong and mas- 
culine " (what a surprising humor there is in this descrip- 
tion!) — ''the Emperor's features," Gulliver says, "are 
strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip, an arched 
nose ; his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body 
and limbs well proportioned, and his deportment majestic. 
He is taller by the breadth of ?ny nail than any of his 
Court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into 
beholders." 

What a surprising humor there is in these descriptions! 
How noble the satire is here! how just and honest! How 
perfect the image ! Mr. ]\Iacaulay has quoted the charm- 
ing lines of the poet where the king of the pigmies is 
measured by the same standard ; we have all read in Milton 
of the spear that was like " the mast of some great 
ammiral." But these images are surely likely to come to 
the comic poet originally. The subject is before him; he 
is turning it in a thousand ways; he is full of it. The 



SWIFT 55 

figure suggests itself naturally to him, and comes out of 
his subject, — as in that wonderful passage when Gulli- 
ver's box having been dropped by the eagle into the sea, 
and Gulliver having been received into the ship's cabin, 
he calls upon the crew to bring the box into the cabin and 
put it on the table, the cabin being only a quarter the size 
of the box! It is the veracity of the blunder which is so 
admirable. Had a man come from such a country as 
Brobdingnag, he w^ould have blundered so. 

But the best stroke of humor, if there be a best in that 
abounding book, is that where Gulliver in the unpro- 
nounceable country, describes his parting from his master 
the horse. 

" I took," he says, " a second leave of my master; but as I was 
going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he did me the honor to 
raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how much I have 
been censured for mentioning this last particular. Detractors are 
pleased to think it improbable that so illustrious a person should 
descend to give so great a mark of distinction to a creature so 
inferior as I. Neither have I forgotten how apt some travellers 
are to boast of extraordinary favors they have received. But 
if these censurers were better acquainted with the noble and 
courteous disposition of the Houyhnhnms, they would soon change 
their opinion." 

The surprise here; the audacity of circumstantial evi- 
dence; the astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not 
ignorant of how much he had been censured; the nature 
of the favor conferred, and the respectful exultation at 
the receipt of it, — are surely complete. It is truth topsy- 
turvy, entirely logical and absurd. 

As for the humor and conduct of this famous fable, I 



56 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

suppose there Is no person who reads but must admire. As 
for the moral, I think it horrible, shameful, unmanly, blas- 
phemous; and giant and great as this Dean is, I say we 
should hoot him. Some of this audience may not have read 
the last part of Gulliver ; and to such I would recall the 
advice of the venerable ]\Ir, Punch to persons about to 
marry, and say, " Don't." When Gulliver first lands 
among the Yahoos, the naked, howling wretches clamber 
up trees and assault him ; and he describes himself as 
" almost stifled with the filth which fell about him." The 
reader of the fourth part of " Gulliver's Travels " is like 
the hero himself in this instance. It is Yahoo language, — 
a monster gibbering shrieks and gnashing imprecations 
against mankind ; tearing down all shreds of modesty, past 
all sense of manliness and shame ; filthy in word, filthy in 
thought, furious, raging, obscene. 

And dreadful it is to think thnt Swift knew the ten- 
dency of his creed, — the fatal rocks towards which his 
logic desperately drifted. That last part of *' Gulliver " 
is only a consequence of what has gone before ; and the 
worthlessness of all mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, 
imbecility; the general vanity, the foolish pretension, the 
mock greatness, the pompous dulness, the mean aims, the 
base successes, — all these were present to him. It was 
wnth the din of these curses of the world, blasphemies 
against Heaven, shrieking in his ears, that he began to 
write his dreadful allegory, — of which the meaning is 
that man is utterly wncked, desperate, and imbecile; and 
his passions are so monstrous and his boasted powers so 
mean that he is and deserves to be the slave of brutes, and 
ignorance is better than his vaunted reason. What had 



SWIFT 57 

this man done? What secret remorse was rankling at his 
heart, what fever was hoiling in him, that he should see 
all the w^orld bloodshot? We view the world with our 
own eyes, each of us ; and we make from within us the 
world we see. A weary heart gets no gladness out of sun- 
shine ; a selfish man is sceptical about friendship, as a man 
with no ear does not care for music. A frightful self- 
consciousness it must have been which looked on mankind 
so darkly through those keen eyes of Swift ! 

A remarkable story is told by Scott of Delany, who 
interrupted Archbishop King and Swift in a conversation 
which left the prelate in tears, and from which Swnft 
rushed away with marks of strong terror and agitation in 
his countenance, upon which the Archbishop said to 
Delany, *' You have just met the most unhappy man on 
earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must 
never ask a question." 

The most unhappy man on earth, — miserrimus! what 
a character of him ! And at this time all the great wits of 
England had been at his feet; all Ireland had shouted 
after him, and worshipped him as a liberator, a savior, the 
greatest Irish patriot and citizen. Dean Drapier Bicker- 
staff Gulliver, — the most famous statei^man and the great- 
est poets of his day had applauded him and done him 
homage; and at this time, writing over to Bolingbroke 
from Ireland, he says: " It is time for me to have done 
with the world; and so I would if I could get into a better 
before I was called into the best, and not die here in a 
rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole/' 

We have spoken about the men, and Swift's behavior 
to them ; and now it behooves us not to forget that there 



58 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

are certain other persons in the creation who had rather 
intimate relations with the great Dean. Two women 
whom he loved and injured are known by every reader of 
books so familiarly that if we had seen them, or if they 
had been relatives of our own, we scarcely could have 
known them better. Who has not in his mind an image 
of Stella? Who does not love her? Fair and tender 
creature ! pure and affectionate heart ! Boots it to you, 
now that you have been at rest for a hundred and twent}"" 
years, not divided in death from the cold heart which 
caused yours, whilst it beat, such faithful pangs of love and 
grief, — boots it to you now that the whole world loves 
and deplores you ? Scarce any man, I believe, ever thought 
of that grave that did not cast a flower of pity on it, and 
write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady, so lovely, so 
loving, so unhappy! you have had countless champions, 
millions of manly hearts mourning for you. From genera- 
tion to generation we take up the fond tradition of ^-our 
beauty; we watch and follow your tragedy, your bright 
morning love and purity, your constancy, your grief, your 
sweet martyrdom. We know your legend by heart. You 
are one of the saints of English story. 

And if Stella's love and innocence are charming to con- 
template, I will say that in spite of ill-usage, in spite of 
drawbacks, in spite of mysterious separation and union, of 
hope delayed and sickened heart; in the teeth of Vanessa, 
and that little episodical aberration which plunged Swift 
into such woeful pitfalls and quagmires of amorous per- 
plexity; in spite of the verdicts of most women, I believe, 
who, as far as my experience and conversation go, gener- 
ally take Vanessa's part in the controversy; in spite of the 



SWIFT 59 

tears which Swift caused Stella to shed, and the rocks and 
barriers w^hich fate and temper interposed, and which pre- 
vented the pure course of that true love from running 
smoothly, — the brightest part of Swift's story, the pure 
star in that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's, is his love 
for Hester Johnson. It has been my business, profession- 
ally of course, to go through a deal of sentimental reading 
in my time, and to acquaint myself with love-making as 
it has been described in various languages and at various 
ages of the world ; and I know of nothing more manly, 
more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these 
brief notes, written in w^hat Swift calls " his little lan- 
guage " in his journal to Stella. He writes to her night 
and morning often. He never sends away a letter to her 
•but he begins a new one on the same day. He can't bear 
to let go her kind little hand, as it were. He knows that 
she is thinking of him, and longing for him far away in 
Dublin yonder. He takes her letters from under his pil- 
low and talks to them familiarly, paternally,- with fond 
epithets and pretty caresses, — as he would to the sweet 
and artless creature who loved him. " Stay," he writes 
one morning, — it is the 14th of December, 1710, — 
" stay, I will answer some of your letter this morning in 
bed. Let me see. Come and appear, little letter ! * Here 
I am,' says he, ' and what say you to Stella this morning, 
fresh and fasting?' And can Stella read this writing 
without hurting her dear eyes?" he goes on, after more 
kind prattle and fond whispering. The dear eyes shine 
clearly upon him then ; the good angel of his life is w^ith 
him and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung 
from them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly that pure 



60 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and tender bosom I A hard fate : but would she have 
changed it? I have heard a woman say that she would 
have taken Swift's cruelty to have had his tenderness. He 
had a sort of worship for her whilst he wounded her. He 
speaks of her after she is gone, — of her wit, of her kind- 
ness, of her grace, of her beauty, — with a simple love and 
reverence that are indescribably touching. In contempla- 
tion of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos, his 
cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry; and he falls 
down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel whose 
life he had embittered, confesses his own wretchedness and 
unworthiness, and adores her with cries of remorse and 
love : — 



When on my sickly couch I lay, 
Impatient both of night and day, 
And groaning in unmanly strains 
Called every power to ease my pains, 
Then Stella ran to my relief, 
With cheerful face and inward grief; 
And though by Heaven's severe decree 
She suffers hourly more than me, 
No cruel master could require 
From slaves employed for daily hire 
What Stella, by her friendship warmed, 
With vigor and delight performed. 
Now wuth a soft and silent tread 
Unheard she moves about my bed ; 
My sinking spirits now supplies 
With cordials in her hands and eyes. 
Best pattern of true friends! bew^are 
You pay too dearly for your care 
If, while your tenderness secures 
Mv life, it must endanger yours; 



SWIFT 61 

For such a fool was never found 
Who pulled a palace to the ground, 
Only to have the ruins made 
Materials for a house decayed." 

One little triumph Stella had in her life, one dear little 
piece of injustice was performed in her favor, for which 
I confess, for my part, I cannot help thanking fate and 
the Dean. That other person was sacrificed to her; that 
— that young w^oman, who lived five doors from Doctor 
Swift's lodgings in Bury Street, and who flattered him 
and made love to him in such an outrageous manner. 
Vanessa was thrown over. 

Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to 
those he wrote to her. He kept Bolingbroke's and Pope's 
and Harley's and Peterborough's. But Stella " very care- 
fully," the Lives say, kept Swift's. Of course; that is the 
way of the world. And so we cannot tell w^hat her style 
was, or of what sort w^ere the little letters which the 
Doctor placed there at night, and bade to appear from 
under his pillow of a morning. But in Letter IV. of that 
famous collection he describes his lodging in Bury Street, 
where he has the first-floor, a dining-room and bed- 
chamber, at eight shillings a week; and in Letter VL he 
says " he has visited a lady just come to town," whose 
name somehow is not mentioned; and in Letter VIH. he 
enters a query of Stella's: *' What do you mean 'that 
boards near me, that I dine with now and then ' ? What 
the deuce ! You know whom I ha*^e dined with every day 
since I left you, better than I do." Of course she does. 
Of course Swift has not the slightest idea of what she 
means. But in a few letters more it turns out that the 



62 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Doctor has been to dine " gravely " with a Mrs. Van- 
homrigh; then that he has been to "his neighbor;" theji 
that he has been unwell, and means to dine for the whole 
week with his neighbor! Stella was quite right in her 
previsions. She saw from the very first hint w^hat was 
going to happen, and scented Vanessa in the air. The 
rival is at the Dean's feet. The pupil and teacher are 
reading together, and drinking tea together, and going to 
prayers together, and learning Latin together, and con- 
jugating mno, amas, amavi together. The " little lan- 
guage " is over for poor Stella. By the rule of grammar 
and the course of conjugation, does not amavi come after 
amo and amasf 

The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa you may peruse in 
Cadenus's own poem on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's 
vehement expostulatory verses and letters to him. She 
adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks him some- 
thing godlike, and only prays to be admitted to lie at his 
feet. As they are bringing him home from church, those 
divine feet of Doctor Swift's are found pretty often In 
Vanessa's parlor. He likes to be admired and adored. 
// y prend gout. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a w^oman 
of great taste and spirit and beauty and wit, and a fortune 
too; he sees her every day. He does not tell Stella about 
the business, until the Impetuous Vanessa becomes too fond 
of him, until the Doctor is quite frightened by the young 
woman's ardor and confounded by her warmth. He 
wanted to marry neither of them, — that I believe was 
the truth ; but if he had not married Stella, Vanessa would 
have had him In spite of himself. When he went back to 
Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain In her isle. 



SWIFT 63 

pursued the fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, he 
vowed, he soothed, and bullied ; the news of the Dean's 
marriage w^ith Stella at last came to her, and it killed her ; 
she died of that passion. 

And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had 
written beautifully regarding her, " That does not surprise 
me," said Mrs. Stella, " for we all know the Dean could 
write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman, a true 
woman ! Would you have had one of them forgive the 
other ? 

In a note in his biography, Scott saj^s that his friend 
Doctor Tuke, of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair 
enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which are written in the 
Dean's hand the words, " Only a woman s hair," — an 
instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings 
under the mask of cynical indifference. 

See the various notions of critics ? Do those words indi- 
cate indifference, or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you 
ever hear or read four words more pathetic? " Only a 
woman's hair!" Only love, only fidelity, only purity, 
innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world 
stricken and wounded, and passed away now out of reach 
of pangs of hope deferred, love insulted, and pitiless deser- 
tion ; only that lock of hair left, and memory and remorse 
for the guilty, lonely wretch shuddering over the grave of 
his victim! 

And yet to have had so much love, he must have given 
some. Treasures of wit and wisdom, and tenderness too, 
must that man have had locked up in the caverns of his 
gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two whom he 
took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. 



64 .- ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

People did not remain there long, and suffered for having 
been there. He shrank away from all affections sooner or 
later. Stella and Vanessa both died near him, and away 
from him. He had not heart enough to see them die. He 
broke from his fastest friend, Sheridan; he slunk away 
from his fondest admirer, Pope. His laugh jars on one's 
ear after seven-score years. He was always alone, alone 
and gnashing in the darkness, except w^hen Stella's sw^et 
smile came and shone upon him. When that went, silence 
and utter night closed over him. An immense genius: an 
awful downfall and ruin. So great a man he seems to me, 
that thinking of him is like thinking of an empire falling. 
We have other great names to mention, — none I think, 
however, so great or so gloomy. 



LECTURE THE SECOND 

CONGREVE AND ADDISON 

A great number of jears ago, before the passing of the 
Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain debating 
club called the " Union ;" and I remember that there was 
a tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented 
that renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of 
the Opposition and Government had their eyes upon the 
University Debating Club, and that if a man distinguished 
himself there he ran some chance of being returned to 
Parliament as a great nobleman's nominee. So Jones of 
John's, or Thomson of Trinity, would rise in their might, 
and draping themselves in their gowns rally round the 
monarchy, or hurl defiance at priests and kings, with the 
majesty of Pitt or the fire of Mirabeau, fancying all the 
while that the great nobleman's emissary was listening to 
the debate from the back benches where he was sitting 
with the family seat in his pocket. Indeed, the legend said 
that one or two young Cambridge men, orators of the 
" Union," were actually caught up thence, and carried 
down to Cornwall or Old Sarum, and so into Parliament ; 
and many a 3^oung fellow deserted the jogtrot university 
curriculum, to hang on in the dust behind the fervid 
wheels of the parliamentary chariot. 

Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of Peers 
and Members of Parliament in Anne's and George's time? 
Were they all in the army, or hunting in the country, or 

65 



66 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

boxing the watch? How was it that the young gentlemen 
from the University got such a prodigious number of 
places? A lad composed a neat copy of verses at Christ- 
church or Trinity, in which the death of a great personage 
was bemoaned, the PVench king assailed, the Dutch or 
Prince Eugene complimented, or the reverse; and the 
party in power was presently to provide for the young 
poet; and a commissionership, or a post in the Stamps, or 
the secretaryship of an Embassy, or a clerkship in the 
Treasury, came into the bard's possession. A wonderful 
fruit-bearing rod was that of Busby's. What have men of 
letters got in our time? Think, not only of Swift, — a 
king fit to rule in any time or empire, — but Addison, 
Steele, Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, John Dennis, 
and many others, who got public employment and pretty 
little pickings out of the public purse. The wits of whose 
names we shall treat in this lecture and two following, all 
(save one) touched the King's coin, and had at some 
period of their lives a happy quarter-day coming round 
for them. 

They all began at school or college in the regular way, 
producing panegyrics upon public characters, what were 
called odes upon public events, battles, sieges, court mar- 
riages and deaths, in which the gods of Olympus and the 
tragic muse were fatigued with invocations, according to 
the fashion of the time in France and in England. " Aid 
us, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo!" cried Addison or Congreve, 
singing of William or Marlborough. "Accourez, chastes 
nymphes du Parnasse!" says Boileau, celebrating the Grand 
Monarch: " Des sons que ma lyre enfante marquez-en 
bien la cadence; et vous, vents, faites silence! je vais parler 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 67 

de Louis!" SchoolboA's' themes and foundation exercises 
are the only relics left now of this scholastic fashion. The 
Olympians remain quite undisturbed in their mountain. 
What man of note, what contributor to the poetry of a 
country newspaper, would now think of writing a con- 
gratulatory ode on the birth of the heir to a dukedom, or 
the marriage of a nobleman? In the past century the 
young gentlemen of the Universities all exercised them- 
selves at these queer compositions ; and some got fame, and 
some gained patrons and places for life, and many more 
took nothing by these efforts of what they were pleased 
to call their muses. 

William Congreve's Pindaric Odes are still to be found 
in " Johnson's Poets," that now unfrequented poets' corner 
in which so many forgotten bigwigs have a niche; but 
though he was also voted to be one of the greatest tragic 
poets of any day, it w^as Congreve's wit and humor which 
first recommended him to courtly fortune. And it is 
recorded that his first play, the " Old Bachelor," brought 
our author to the notice of that great patron of the Eng- 
lish muses, Charles Montague Lord Halifax, — who, 
being desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of ease 
and tranquillity, instantly made him one of the Commis- 
sioners for licensing hackney-coaches, bestowed on him 
soon after a place in the Pipe Office, and likewise a post 
in the Custom House of the value of £600. 

A commissionership of hackney-coaches, a post in the 
Custom House, a place in the Pipe Office, — and all for 
writing a comedy! Does not it sound like a fable, that 
place in the Pipe Office? " Ah, I'heureux temps que celui 
de ces fables!" Men of letters there still be; but I 



68 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

doubt whether any Pipe Offices are left. The public has 
smoked them long ago. 

Words, like men, pass current for a while with the pub- 
lic, and being known everywhere abroad, at length take 
their places in society; so even the most secluded and 
refined ladies here present will have heard the phrase from 
their sons or brothers at school, and will permit me to call 
William Congreve, Esquire, the most eminent literary 
" swell " of his age. In my copy of '* Johnson's Lives " 
Congreve's wig is the tallest, and put on with the jauntiest 
air of all the laurelled worthies. " I am the great IVIr. 
Congreve," he seems to say, looking out from his volumi- 
nous curls. / People called him the great Mr. Congreve. 
From the beginning of his career until the end everybody 
admired him. Having got his education in Ireland, at 
the same school and college with Swift, he came to live in 
the Middle Temple, London, where he luckily bestowed 
no attention to the law, but splendidly frequented the 
coffee-houses and theatres, and appeared in the side-box, 
the tavern, the Piazza, and the Mall, brilliant, beautiful, 
and victorious from the first. Everybody acknowledged 
the young chieftain. The great Mr. Dryden declared that 
he was equal to Shakspere, and bequeathed to him his own 
undisputed poetical crown, and writes of him: "Mr. 
Congreve has done me the favor to review the i^neis and 
compare my version with the original. I shall never be 
ashamed to own that this excellent young man has showed 
me many faults, which I have endeavored to correct." 

The ** excellent young man " was but three or four and 
twenty when the great Dryden thus spoke of him, — the 
greatest literary chief in England, the veteran field-marshal 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 69 

of letters, himself the marked man of all Europe, and the 
centre of a school of wits who daily gathered round his 
chair and tobacco-pipe at Will's, Pope dedicated his Iliad 
to him; Swift, Addison, Steele, all acknowledge Con- 
greve's rank, and lavish compliments upon him. Voltaire 
went to w^ait upon him as on one of the Representatives of 
Literature ; and the man who scarce praises any other liv- 
ing person, who flung abuse at Pope and Swift and Steele 
and Addison, — the Grub Street Timon, old John Den- 
nis, — was hat in hand to Mr. Congreve, and said that 
when he retired from the stage, Comedy went with him. 

Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was admired 
in the drawing-rooms as well as the coffee-houses ; as much 
beloved in the side-box as on the stage. He loved and 
conquered and jilted the beautiful Bracegirdle, the heroine 
of all his pla^^s, the favorite of all the town of her day; 
and the Duchess of Marlborough, Marlborough's daugh- 
ter, had such an admiration of him, that when he died she 
had an ivory figure made to imitate him, and a large wax 
doll with gouty feet to be dressed just as the great Con- 
greve's gouty feet were dressed in his great lifetime. He 
saved some money by his Pipe office and his Custom House 
office and his Hackney-Coach office, and nobly left it, not 
to Bracegirdle w^ho wanted it, but to the Duchess of Marl- 
borough who did not. 

How can I introduce to you that merry and shameless 
Comic ]\Iuse who won him such a reputation ? Nell 
Gwynn's servant fought the other footman for having 
called his mistress a bad name ; and in like manner, and 
with pretty little epithets, Jeremy Collier attacked that 
godless, reckless Jezebel, the English comedy of his time, 



70 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and called her what Nell Gw5^nn's man's fellow-servants 
called Nell Gwynn's man's mistress. The servants of 
the theatre — Dryden, Congreve, and others — defended 
themselves with the same success and for the same cause 
which set Nell's lacquey fighting. She was a disreputable, 
daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that Comic 
Muse. She came over from the Continent with Charles 
(who chose many more of his female friends there) at the 
Restoration, — a wild, dishevelled Lais, with eyes bright 
with wit and wine; a saucy court favorite that sat at tlie 
King's knees and laughed in his face, and when she showed 
her bold cheeks at her chariot window had some of the 
noblest and most famous people of the land bowing round 
her wheel. She was kind and popular enough, that daring 
Comedy, that audacious poor Nell; she was gay and gen- 
erous, kind, frank, as such people can afford to be ; and 
the men who lived with her and laughed with her took 
her pay and drank her wine, turned out when the Puritans 
hooted her to fight and defend her. But the jade was 
indefensible, and it is pretty certain her servants knew it. 
There is life and death going on in everything: truth 
and lies always at battle. Pleasure is always warring 
against self-restraint; Doubt is always crying Psha! and 
sneering. A man in life, a humorist in w^riting about life, 
sways over to one principle or the other, and laughs with 
the reverence for right and the love of truth in his heart, 
or laughs at these from the other side. Didn't I tell you 
that dancing was a serious business to Harlequin ? I have 
read two or three of Congreve's plays over before speaking 
of him; and my feelings were rather like those which I 
dare say most of us here have had at Pompeii, looking at 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 71 

Sallust's house and the relics of an orgy, — a dried wine- 
jar or two, a charred supper-table, the breast of a dancing- 
girl pressed against the ashes, the laughing skull of a 
jester, — a perfect stillness round about, as the cicerone 
twangs his moral, and the blue sky shines calmly over the 
ruin. , The Congreve Muse is dead, and her song choked 
in Time's ashes. We gaze at the skeleton, and wonder 
at the life which once revelled in its mad veins. We take 
the skull up, and muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, 
scorn, passion, hope, desire, with which that empty bowl 
once fermented. We think of the glances that allured, the 
tears that melted; of the bright eyes that shone in those 
vacant sockets, and of lips whispering love, and cheeks 
dimpling with smiles that once covered yon ghastly, yellow 
framework. They used to call those teeth pearls once. 
See ! there's the cup she drank fram, the gold chain she 
w^ore on her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her 
cheeks, her looking-glass, and the harp she used to dance 
to. Instead of a feast we find a gravestone, and in place 
of a mistress a few bones! \ 

Reading in these plays now is like shutting your ears and 
looking at people dancing. What does it mean, — the 
measures, the grimaces, the bowing, shuffling, and retreat- 
ing; the cavalier seul advancing upon those ladies, those 
ladies and men tw^irling round at the end in a mad galop ; 
after which ever^^body bows, and the quaint rite is cele- 
brated? Without the music w^e cannot understand that 
comic dance of the last century, — its strange gravity and 
gaiety, its decorum or its indecorum. It has a jargon of 
its own quite unlike life ; a sort of moral of its own quite 
unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a Heathen mystery, 



72 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

s^Tnbolizing a Pagan doctrine; protesting (as the Pom- 
peians very likely were, assembled at their theatre and 
laughing at their games ; as Sallust and his friends and 
their mistresses protested, crowned with flowers, with cups 
in their hands) against the new, hard, ascetic, pleasure- 
hating doctrine whose gaunt disciples, lately passed over 
from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, w^re for 
breaking the fair images of Venus and flinging the altars 
of Bacchus down. 

I fancy poor Congreve's theatre is a temple of Pagan 
delights, and m5^steries not permitted except among 
Heathens. I fear the theatre carries down that ancient 
tradition and worship, as Masons have carried their secret 
signs and rites from temple to temple. When the libertine 
hero carries off the beauty in the play, and the dotard is 
laughed to scorn for having the young wife; in the ballad, 
when the poet bids his mistress to gather roses while she 
may, and warns her that old Time is still a-flying; in the 
ballet, when honest Corydon courts Phillis under the 

I treillage of the pasteboard cottage, and leers at her over 
the head of grandpapa in red stockings, who is opportunely 
asleep ; and when seduced by the invitations of the rosy 
youth she comes forward to the footlights, and they per- 
form on each other's tiptoes that pas which you all know, 

i and which is only interrupted by old grandpapa awaking 
from his doze at the pasteboard chalet (whither he returns 
to take another nap in case the young people get an 
encore) ; when Harlequin, splendid in youth, strength, 
and agility, arrayed in gold and a thousand colors, springs 

. over the heads of countless perils, leaps down the throat 
of bewildered giants, and, dauntless and splendid, dances 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 73 

danger down; when Mr. Punch, that godless old rebel, 
breaks every law and laughs at it with odious triumph, 
outwits his lawyer, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife 
about the head, and hangs the hangman, — don't you see 
in the comedy, in the song, in the dance, in the ragged 
little Punch's puppet-show^ the Pagan protest? Does not 
it seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment? 
Look how the lovers walk and hold each other's hands and 
w^hisper! Sings the chorus: " There is nothing like love, 
there is nothing like youth, there is nothing like beauty 
of your springtime. Look how old age tries to meddle 
with merry sport! Beat him w^ith his own crutch, the 
wrinkled old dotard ! There is nothing like youth, there 
is nothing like beauty, there is nothing like strength. 
Strength and valor win beauty and youth. Be brave and 
conquer. Be young and happy. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! 
Would you know the S egret o per esser felice? Here it is, 
in a smiling mistress and a cup of Falernian !" As the 
boy tosses the cup and sings his song — hark ! what is that 
chant coming nearer and nearer? What is that dirge 
which ivill disturb us? The lights of the festival burn 
dim, the cheeks turn pale, the voice quavers, and the cup 
drops on the floor. Who is there? Death and Fate are 
at the gate, and they will come in. 

Congreve's comic feast flares with lights ; and round the 
table, emptying their flaming bowls of drink and exchang- 
ing the wildest jests and ribaldry, sit men and women, 
waited on by rascally valets and attendants as dissolute as 
their mistresses, — perhaps the very worst company in the 
world. There does not seem to be a pretence of morals. 
At the head of the table sits Mirabel or Belmour (dressed 



74 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

in the French fashion, and waited on by English imitators 
of Scapin and Frontin). Their calling is to be irresistible, 
and to conquer everywhere. Like the heroes of the 
chivalry story, whose long-winded loves and combats they 
were sending out of fashion, they are always splendid and 
triumphant, — overcome all dangers, vanquish all enemies, 
and win the beauty at the end. Fathers, husbands, usurers, 
are the foes these champions contend with. They are 
merciless in old age invariably, and an old man plays the 
part in the dramas which the wicked enchanter or the 
great blundering giant performs in the chivalry tales, who 
threatens and grumbles and resists, — a huge, stupid 
obstacle always overcome by the knight. It is an old man 
with a money-box : Sir Belmour, his son or nephew, spends 
his money and laughs at him. It is an old man with a 
young wife whom he locks up : Sir Mirabel robs him of 
his wife, trips up his gouty old heels, and leaves the old 
hunks. The old fool! what business has he to hoard his 
money, or to lock up blushing eighteen? Money is for 
youth, love is for youth : away with the old people ! When 
Millamant is sixty, having of course divorced the first 
Lady Millamant and married his friend Doricourt's 
granddaughter out of the nursery, it will be his turn ; and 
young Belmour will make a fool of him. All this pretty 
morality you have in the comedies of William Congreve, 
Esquire. They are full of wit. Such manners as he 
observes, he observes wnth great humor; but, ah; it is a 
weary feast, that banquet of wit where no love is. It palls 
very soon ; sad indigestions follow it, and lonely blank 
headaches in the morning. 

I cannot pretend to quote scenes from the splendid 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 75 

Congreve's plays — which are undeniably bright, witty, 
and daring — any more than I could ask you to hear the 
dialogue of a witty bargeman and a brilliant fishwoman 
exchanging compliments at Billingsgate ; but some of his 
verses — they were amongst the most famous lyrics of the 
time, and pronounced equal to Horace by his contempo- 
raries — may give an idea of his power, of his grace, of 
his daring manner, his magnificence in compliment, and his 
polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was so accustomed 
to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his victims. 
Nothing is new except their faces, says he ; " every woman 
is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which he 
wrote languidly in illness, when he was an " excellent 
young man." Richelieu at eighty could have hardly said 
a more excellent thing. 

When he advances to make one of his conquests, it is 
with a splendid gallantry, in full uniform and with the 
fiddles playing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking 
the breach of Lerida. 

** Cease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young 
lady at the Wells at Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a 
magnificent compliment, — 

" Cease, cease to ask her name. 
The crowned Muse's noblest theme. 
Whose glory by immortal fame 

Shall only sounded be. 
But if you long to know, 
Then look round yonder dazzling row: 
Who most does like an angel show 

You may be sure 't is she." 

Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was 



76 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

not so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating 
her: — 

" When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair, 
With eyes so bright and with that awful air, 
I thought my heart which durst so high aspire 
As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. 

" But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke. 
Forth from her coral lips such folly broke! 
Like balm the trickling nonsense healed my wound, 
And what her eyes enthralled her tongue unbound." 

Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia ; but 
the poet does not seem to respect one much more than the 
other, and describes both wnth exquisite satirical humor : — 

" Fair Amoret is gone astray : 

Pursue and seek her, every lover ! 
I'll tell the signs by which you may 
The wandering shepherdess discover. 

" Coquet and coy at once her air. 

Both studied, though both seem neglected ; 
Careless she is with artful care, 
Affecting to seem unaffected. 

" With skill her eyes dart every glance, 

Yet change so soon you'd ne'er suspect them ; 
For she'd persuade they wound by chance. 
Though certain aim and art direct them. 

" She likes herself, yet others hates 

For that which in herself she prizes; 
And, while she laughs at them, forgets 
She is the thing that she despises." 

What could Amoret have done to bring down such 
shafts of ridicule upon her? Could she have resisted the 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 77 

irresistible Mr. Congreve? Could anybody? Could 
Sabina, when she woke and heard such a bard singing 
under her window? " See," he writes, — 

"See! see, she wakes! Sabina wakes! 

And now the sun begins to rise. 
Less glorious is the morn that breaks 

From his bright beams than her fair eyes. 
With light united, day they give ; 

But different fates ere night fulfil: 
How many by his warmth will live! 

How many will her coldness kill!" 

Are you melted ? Do not you think him a divine man ? 
If not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear the devout 
Selinda: — 

" Pious Selinda goes to prayers, 

If I but ask the favor ; 
And yet the tender fool's in tears 

When she believes I'll leave her! 
Would I were free from this restraint, 

Or else had hopes to win her ; 
Would she could make of me a saint. 

Or I of her a sinner!" 

What a conquering air there is about these ! What an 
irresistible Mr. Congreve it is! Sinner! of course he will 
be a sinner, the delightful rascal! Win her! of course he 
will win her, the victorious rogue ! He knows he will : he 
must, with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a 
splendid embroidered suit! You see him with red-heeled 
shoes deliciously turned out, passing a fair jewelled hand 
through his dishevelled periwig, and delivering a killing 
ogle along with his scented billet. And Sabina? What a 



78 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

comparison that is between the nymph and the sun ! The 
sun gives Sabina the pas, and does not venture to rise 
before her ladyship. The morn's bright beams are less 
glorious than her jair eyes; but before night everybody will 
be frozen by her glances, — everybody but one lucky 
rogue who shall be nameless. Louis Quatorze in all his 
glory is hardly more splendid than our Phoebus Apollo 
of the Mall and Spring Garden. 

When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the 
latter rather affected to despise his literary reputation, — 
and in this, perhaps, the great Congreve was not far wrong. 
A touch of Steele's tenderness is worth all his finery; a 
flash of Swift's lightning, a beam of Addison's pure sun- 
shine, and his tawdry playhouse taper is invisible. But the 
ladies loved him, and he was undoubtedly a pretty fellow. 

We have seen in Swift a humorous philosopher, whose 
truth frightens one, and w^hose laughter makes one melan- 
choly. We have had in Congreve a humorous observer of 
another school, to whom the world seems to have no morals 
at all, and whose ghastly doctrine seems to be that we 
should eat, drink, and be merry when we can, and go to 
the deuce (if there be a deuce) when the time comes. We 
come now to a humor that flows from quite a different 
heart and spirit, — a wit that makes us laugh and leaves 
us good and happy; to one of the kindest benefactors that 
society has ever had ; and I believe you have divined 
already that I am about to mention Addison's honored 
name. 

From reading over his writings and the biographies 
which we have of him, amongst which the famous article 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 79 

in the " Edinburgh Review " may be cited as a magnificent 
statue of the great writer and moralist of the last age, 
raised by the love and the marvellous skill and genius of 
one of the most illustrious artists of our own, — looking 
at that calm, fair face and clear countenance, those 
chiselled features pure and cold, I cannot but fancy that 
this great man (in this respect, like him of whom we 
spoke in the last lecture) w^as also one of the lonely ones 
of the world. Such men have very few equals, and they 
do not herd with those. It is in the nature of such lords 
of intellect to be solitary. They are in the world, but not 
of it; and our minor struggles, brawls, successes, pass 
under them. 

Kind, just, serene, impartial; his fortitude not tried 
beyond easy endurance; his affections not much used, for 
his books were his family, and his society was in public; 
admirably wiser, wittier, calmer, and more instructed than 
almost every man with whom he met, — how could Addi- 
son suffer, desire, admire, feel much? I may expect a child 
to admire me for being taller or writing more cleverly than 
she; but how can I ask my superior to say that I am a 
wonder when he knows better than I ? In Addison's days 
you could scarcely show him a literary performance, a ser 
mon, or a poem, or a piece of literary criticism, but he felt 
he could do better. His justice must have made him indif- 
ferent. He did not praise, because he measured his com- 
peers by a higher standard than common people have. 
How w^as he who was so tall to look up to any but the 
loftiest genius? He must have stooped to put himself on 
a level with most men. By that profusion of graciousness 
and smiles with which Goethe or Scott, for instance, 



80 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

greeted almost even/ literary beginner, — every small 
literary adventurer who came to his court and went away 
charmed from the great king's audience, and cuddling to 
his heart the compliment which his literary majesty had 
paid nim, — each of the two good-natured potentates of 
letters brought their star and ribbon into discredit. Every- 
body had his majesty's orders; everybody had his majesty's 
cheap portrait on a box surrounded by diamonds worth 
twopence apiece. A very great and just and wise man 
ought not to praise indiscriminately, but give his idea of 
the truth. Addison praises the ingenio.us Mr. Pinketh- 
man ; Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Doggett the 
actor, whose benefit is coming off that night ; Addison 
praises Don Saltero; Addison praises Milton with all his 
heart, bends his knee and frankly pays homage to that 
imperial genius. But between those degrees of his men 
his praise is very scanty. I do not think the great Mr. 
Addison liked young IMr. Pope, the Papist, much. I do 
not think he abused him; but when Mr. Addison's men 
abused Mr. Pope, I do not think Addison took his pipe 
out of his mouth to contradict them. 

Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute in 
Wiltshire, and rose in the Church. His famous son never 
lost his clerical training and scholastic gravity, and was 
called " a parson in a tye-wig " in London afterw^ards, at 
a time when tye-wigs were only worn by the laity, and 
the fathers of theology did not think it decent to appear 
except in a full bottom. Having been at school at Salis- 
bury and the Charterhouse, in 1687, when he was fifteen 
years old, he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where he 
speedily began to distinguish himself by the making of 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 81 

Latin verses. The beautiful and fanciful poem of " The 
Pigmies and the Cranes " is still read by lovers of that 
sort of exercise; and verses are extant in honor of King 
William, — by which it appears that it was the loyal 
youth's custom to toast that sovereign in bumpers of purple 
Lyaeus. Many more works are in the Collection, includ- 
ing one on the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, which w^as so 
good that Montague got him a pension of £300 a year, 
on which Addison set out on his travels. 

During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply 
imbued himself with the Latin poetical literature, and had 
these poets at his fingers' ends when he travelled in Italy. 
His patron went out of office, and his pension was unpaid ; 
and hearing that this great scholar, now eminent and 
known to the literati of Europe (the great Boileau, upon 
perusal of Mr. Addison's elegant hexameters, was first 
made aware that England was not altogether a barbarous 
nation), — hearing that the celebrated Mr. Addison, of 
Oxford, proposed to travel as governor to a j'oung gentle- 
man on the grand tour, the great Duke of Somerset 
proposed to Mr. Addison to accompany his son. Lord 
Hertford. 

Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his Grace, 
and his Lordship his Grace's son, and expressed himself 
ready to set forth. 

His Grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one 
of the most famous scholars of Oxford and Europe that 
it was his gracious intention to allow my Lord Hertford's 
tutor one hundred guineas per annum. Mr. Addison 
wrote back that his services were his Grace's, but he by 
no means found his account In the recompense for them. 



82 ' ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

The negotiation was broken off. They parted with a pro- 
fusion of congees on one side and the other. 

Addison remained abroad for some time, living in the 
best society of Europe. How could he do otherwise? He 
must have been one of the finest gentlemen the world ever 
saw, — at all moments of life serene and courteous, 
cheerful and calm. He could scarcely ever have had a 
degrading thought. He might have omitted a virtue or 
two, or many, but could not have committed many faults 
for which he need blush or turn pale. When warmed 
into confidence, his conversation appears to have been so 
delightful that the greatest wits sat rapt and charmed to 
listen to him. No man bore poverty and narrow fortune 
with a more lofty cheerfulness. His letters to his friends 
at this period of his life, when he had lost his government 
pension and given up his college chances, are full of cour- 
age and a gay confidence and philosophy; and they are 
none the worse in my eyes, and I hope not in those of his 
last and greatest biographer (though Mr. Macaulay is 
bound to own and lament a certain weakness for wine, 
which the great and good Joseph Addison notoriously 
possessed, in common with countless gentlemen of his 
time), because some of the letters are written when his 
honest hand was shaking a little in the morning after liba- 
tions to purple Lyaeus overnight. He was fond of drink- 
ing the healths of his friends. He writes to Wj^che, of 
Hamburg, gratefully remembering Wyche's ** hoc." " I 
have been drinking your health to-day with Sir Richard 
Shirley," he writes to Bathurst. " I have lately had the 
honor to meet my Lord Effingham at Amsterdam, where 
we have drunk Mr. Wood's health a hundred times in 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 83 

excellent champagne," he writes again. Swift describes 
him over his cups, when Joseph yielded to a temptation 
which Jonathan resisted. Joseph was of a cold nature, 
and needed perhaps the fire of wine to warm his blood. 
If he was a parson, he wore a tye-wig, recollect. A better 
and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Jo- 
seph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine, 
— w4iy, we could scarcely have found a fault with him, 
and could not have liked him as we do. 

At thirty-three years of age, this most distinguished wit, 
scholar, and gentleman was without a profession and an 
income. His book of Travels had failed ; his ** Dialogues 
on Medals" had had no particular success; his Latin 
verses, even though reported the best since Virgil, or 
Statius at any rate, had not brought him a government 
place ; and Addison was living up two shabby pair of 
stairs in the Haymarket (in a poverty over which old 
Samuel Johnson rather chuckles), when in these shabby 
rooms an emissary from Government and Fortune came 
and found him. A poem was wanted about the Duke of 
Marlborough's victory of Blenheim. Would Mr. Addi- 
son write one? Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton, 
took back the reply to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, 
that Mr. Addison would. When the poem had reached 
a certain stage, it was carried to Godolphin ; and the last 
lines which he read were these : — 

" But, O my Muse ! what numbers wilt thou find 
To sing the furious troops in battle joined? 
Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound, 
The victors' shouts, and dying groans confound, 
The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, 



84 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

And all the thunder of the battle rise. 

'T was then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, 

That in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, 

Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, 

Examined all the dreadful scenes of war; 

In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, 

To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, 

Inspired repulsed battalions to engage. 

And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 

So when an angel, by divine command. 

With rising tempests shakes a guilty land 

(Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed). 

Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; 

And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform. 

Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." 

Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was 
pronounced to be of the greatest ever produced in poetrj^ 
That angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, 
and landed him in the place of Commissioner of Appeals, 
— vice Mr. Locke providentially promoted. In the fol- 
lowing year Mr. Addison went to Hanover with Lord 
Halifax, and the year after was made Under-Secretary of 
State. O angel visits! you come " few and far between " 
to literary gentlemen's lodgings! Your wings seldom 
quiver at second-floor windows now! 

You laugh? You think it is in the power of few 
writers nowadays to call up such an angel? Well, per- 
haps not; but permit us to comfort ourselves by pointing 
out that there are in the poem of the " Campaign " some 
as bad lines as heart can desire, and to hint that Mr. 
Addison did very wisely in not going further wnth my 
Lord Godolphin than that angelical simile. Do allow 
me, just for a little harmless mischief, to read 3'ou some 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 85 

of the lines which follow. Here is the interview^ 
between the Duke and the King of the Romans after the 
battle: — 

" Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway, 
Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey, 
Whose boasted ancestry so high extends 
That in the Pagan Gods his lineage ends. 
Comes from afar, in gratitude to own 
The great supporter of his father's throne. 
What tides of glory to his bosom ran 
Clasped in th' embraces of the godlike man ! 
How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt, 
To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt ! 
Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, 
So turned and finished for the camp or court!" 

How^ many fourth-form boys at I\Ir. Addison's school 
of Charterhouse could write as well as that now? The 
"Campaign" has blunders, triumphant as it was; and 
weak points, like all campaigns. 

In the year 1713 " Cato " came out. Swift has left a 
description of the first night of the performance. All the 
laurels of Europe were scarcely sufficient for the author 
of this prodigious poem, — laudations of Whig and Tory 
chiefs, popular ovations, complimentary garlands from lit- 
erary men, translations in all languages, delight and 
homage from all, save from John Dennis in a minority of 
one. Mr. Addison was called the " great Mr. Addison " 
after this. The Coffee-house Senate saluted him Divus ; 
it was heresy to question that decree. 

Meanwhile he w^as writing political papers and advanc- 
ing in the political profession. He went Secretary to Ire- 
land ; he was appointed Secretary of State in 1717; and 



86 ENGLISH HUiMORISTS 

letters of his. are extant, bearing date some year or two 
before, and written to young Lord Warwick, in which he 
addresses him as " my dearest Lord," and asks affection- 
ately about his studies, and wTites very prettily about 
nightingales and birds'-nests, which he has found at Ful- 
ham for his Lordship, Those nightingales were intended 
to warble in the ear of Lord Warwick's mamma. Addi- 
son married her Ladyship in 1716, and died at Holland 
Bouse three years after that splendid but dismal union. 
But it is not for his reputation as the great autkor of 
" Cato " and the " Campaign," or for his merits as Sec- 
retary of State, or for his rank and high distinction as my 
Lady Warwick's husband, or for his eminence as an 
Examiner of political questions on the Whig side, or a 
Guardian of British liberties, that w^e admire Joseph 
Addison. It is as a Tatler of small talk and a Spectator 
of mankind that we cherish and love him, and owe as 
much pleasure to him as to any human being that ever 
wrote. He came in that artificial age, and began to speak 
with his noble, natural voice. He came, the gentle satir- 
ist, who hit no unfair blow; the kind judge, who casti- 
gated only in smiling. While Swift went about hanging 
and ruthless, a literary Jeffreys, in Addison's kind court 
only minor cases were tried ; only peccadilloes and small 
sins against society ; only a dangerous libertinism in tuckers 
and hoops, or a nuisance in the abuse of beaux' canes and 
snuff-boxes. It may be a lady is tried for breaking the 
peace of our sovereign lady Queen Anne, and ogling too 
dangerously from the side-box; or a Templar for beating 
the w^atch, or breaking Priscian's head ; or a citizen's wife 
for caring too much for the puppet-show, and too little 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 87 

for her husband and children. Every one of the little 
sinners brought before him is amusing, and he dismisses 
each with the pleasantest penalties and the most charming 
words of admonition. 

Addison wrote his papers as gayly as if he was going 
out for a holiday. When Steele's " Tatler " first began his 
prattle, Addison, then in Ireland, caught at his friend's 
notion, poured in paper after paper, and contributed the 
stores of his mind, the sweet fruits of his reading, the 
delightful gleanings of his daily observation, with a won- 
derful profusion, and as it seemed an almost endless 
fecundity. He was six-and-thirty years old, full and ripe. 
He had not worked crop after crop from his brain, manur- 
ing hastily, subsoiling indifferently, cutting and sowing 
and cutting again, like other luckless cultivators of letters. 
He had not done much as yet, — a few Latin poems, 
graceful prolusions ; a polite book of travels ; a dissertation 
on medals, not very deep ; four acts of a tragedy, a great 
classical exercise ; and the " Campaign," a large prize 
poem that won an enormous prize. But with his friend's 
discovery of the " Tatler " Addison's calling was found, 
and the most delightful talker in the world began to speak. 
He does not go very deep: let gentlemen of a profound 
genius, critics accustomed to the plunge of the bathos, 
console themselves by thinking that he could not go very 
deep. There are no traces of suffering in his writing, — 
he was so good, so honest, so healthy, so cheerfully selfish, 
if I must use the word. There is no deep sentiment. I 
doubt, until after his marriage, perhaps, whether he ever 
lost his night's rest or his day's tranquillity about any 
woman in his life; whereas poor Dick Steele had capacity 



88 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

enough to melt and to languish and to sigh, and to cr}- 
his honest old eyes out, for a dozen. His writings do not 
show insight into or reverence for the love of women, 
which I take to be one the consequence of the other. He 
walks about the world watching their pretty humors, 
fashions, follies, flirtations, rivalries, and noting them with 
the most charming archness. He sees them in public, in 
the theatre, or the assembly, or the puppet-show; or at 
the toy-shop, higgling for gloves and lace; or at the auc- 
tion, battling together over a blue porcelain dragon or a 
darling monster in Japan ; or at church, eyeing the width 
of their rivals' hoops or the breadth of their laces as they 
sweep down the aisles. Or he looks out of his window, 
at the Garter in Saint James's Street, at Ardelia's coach, 
as she blazes to the drawing-room with her coronet and 
six footmen, and remembering that her father w^as a Tur- 
key merchant in the City, calculates how many sponges 
went to purchase her earring, and how many drums of 
figs to build her coach-box ; or he demurely w^atches 
behind a tree in Spring Garden as Saccharissa (whom he 
knows under her mask) trips out of her chair to the alley 
where Sir Fopling is w^aiting. He sees only the public 
life of women. Addison was one of the most resolute 
club-men of his day; he passed many hours daily in those 
haunts. Besides drinking, — which, alas ! is past praying 
for, — it must be owned, ladies, that he indulged in that 
odious practice of smoking. Poor fellow^ He was a 
man's man, remember. The only w^oman he did know, 
he did not write about. I take it there would not have 
been much humor in that story. 

He likes to go on and sit in the smokine-room at the 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 89 

Grecian or the Devil ; to pace 'Change and the Mall, to 
mingle in that great club of the world, — sitting alone in 
it somehow, having good-will and kindness for every single 
man and woman in it, having need of some habit and 
custom binding him to some few; never doing any man a 
wrong (unless it be a wrong to hint a little doubt about 
a man's parts, and to damn him with faint praise). And 
so he looks on the world, and plays with the ceaseless 
humors of all of us; laughs the kindest laugh; points 
our neighbor's foible or eccentricity out to us with the 
most good-natured smiling confidence, and then, turning 
over his shoulder, whispers our foibles to our neighbor. 
What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without his follies 
and his charming little brain-cracks? If the good knight 
did not call out to the people sleeping in church, and say 
"Amen " with such a delightful pomposity; if he did not 
make a speech in the assize-eourt a propos de bottes, and 
merely to show his dignity to Mr. Spectator; if he did not 
mistake IMadam Doll Tearsheet for a lady of quality in 
Temple Garden ; if he were wnser than he is ; if he had 
not his humor to salt his life, and were but a mere Eng- 
lish gentleman and game-preserver, — of w^hat worth 
were he to us? We love him for his vanities as much as 
for his virtues. What is ridiculous is delightful in him; 
we are so fond of him because we laugh at him so. And 
out of that laughter, and out of that sweet weakness, and 
out of those harmless eccentricities and follies, and out 
of that touched brain, and out of that honest manhood 
and simplicity, we get a result of happiness, goodness, 
tenderness, pity, piety, — such as, if my audience will 
think their reading and hearing over, doctors and divines 



90 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

but seldom have the fortune to inspire. And why not! 
Is the glory of heaven to be sung only by gentlemen in 
black coats? Must the truth be only expounded in gown 
and surplice, and out of those two vestments can nobody 
preach it? Commend me to this dear preacher without 
orders, — this parson in the tye-wig. When this man 
looks from the world, whose weaknesses he describes so 
benevolently, up to the heaven which shines over us all, 
I can hardly fancy a human face lighted up with a more 
serene rapture, a human intellect thrilling with a purer 
love and adoration, than Joseph Addison's. Listen to 
him ! From your childhood you have known the verses ; 
but who can hear their sacred music without love and awe ? 

" Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
And nightly to the listening earth 
Repeats the story of her birth ; 
Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll. 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

" What though, in solemn silence, all 
Move round the dark terrestrial ball ; 
What though no real voice nor sound 
Amid their radiant orbs be found ; 
In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice ; 
Forever singing as they shine. 
The hand that made us is divine." 

It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They 
shine out of a great, deep calm. When he turns to 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 91 

heaven, a Sabbath comes over that man's mind, and his 
face lights up from it with a glory of thanks and prayer. 
His sense of religion stirs through his w^hole being. In 
the fields, in the town ; looking at the birds in the trees, 
at the children in the streets; in the morning or in the 
moonlight ; over his books in his own room ; in a happy 
party at a country merry-making or a town assembly, — 
good-will and peace to God's creatures, and love and awe 
of Him who made them, fill his pure heart and shine from 
his kind face. If Swift's life was the most wretched, I 
think Addison's was one of the most enviable, — a life 
prosperous and beautiful, a calm death, an immense fame 
and affection afterwards for his happy and spotless name. 



LECTURE THE THIRD 

STEELE 

What do we look for in studying the histon^ of a past 
age? Is it to learn the political transactions and characters 
of the leading public men? Is it to make ourselves 
acquainted with the life and being of the time? If we 
set out with the former grave purpose, where is the truth, 
and who believes that he has it entire? What character 
of what great man is known to jou? You can but make 
guesses as to character more or less happy. In common 
life* don't 30U often judge and misjudge a man's whole 
conduct, setting out from a wrong impression? The tone 
of a voice, a word said in joke, or a trifle in behavior, the 
cut of his hair or the tie of his neckcloth, may disfigure 
him in your eyes or poison your good opinion ; or at the 
end of years of intimacy it may be your closest friend, says 
something, reveals something which had previously been 
a secret, which alters all your view^s about him, and shows 
that he has been acting on quite a different motive to that 
which you fancied you knew. And if it is so with those 
you know, how much more with those you do not know? 
Say, for example, that I want to understand the character 
of the Duke of Marlborough : I read Swift's history of the 
times in which he took a part. The shrewdest of observers, 
and initiated, one would think, into the politics of the age, 
he hints to me that Marlborough was a coward, and even 
of doubtful military capacity; he speaks of Walpole as a 

92 



STEELE 93 

contemptible boor, and scarcely mentions, except to flout 
it, the great intrigue of the Queen's latter days, which 
was to have ended in bringing back the Pretender. Again, 
I read Marlborough's Life by a copious archdeacon, who 
has the command of immense papers, of sonorous language, 
of what is called the best information ; and I get little or 
no insight into this secret motive which I believe influenced 
the w^hole of Marlborough's career, which caused his turn- 
ings and windings, his opportune fidelity and treason, 
stopped his army almost at Paris gate, and landed him 
finally on the Hanoverian side, — the winning side. I 
get, I say, no truth, or only a portion of it, in'the narrative 
of either writer, and believe that Coxe's portrait or Swift's 
portrait is quite unlike the real Churchill. I take this as 
a single instance, prepared to be as sceptical about any 
other, and say to the Muse of History: "O venerable 
daughter of Mnemosyne! I doubt every single statement 
you ever made since your ladyship was a Muse. For all 
your grave airs and high pretensions, you are not a whit 
more trustworthy than some of j-our lighter sisters on 
whom 5^our partisans look down. You bid me listen to a 
general's oration to his soldiers : Nonsense ! He no more 
made it than Turpin made his dying speech at Newgate. 
You pronounce a panegyric on a hero: I doubt it, and 
say you flatter outrageously. You utter the condemnation 
of a loose character; I doubt it, and think you are preju- 
diced, and take the side of the Dons. You offer me an auto- 
biography: I doubt all autobiographies I ever read, except 
those perhaps of Mr. Robinson Crusoe, Mariner, and 
writers of his class. These have no object in setting them- 
selves right with the public or their own consciences ; these 



94 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

have no motive for concealment or half-truths; these call 
for no more confidence than I can cheerfully give, and do 
not force me to tax mj^ credulit}^ or to fortify it by evi- 
dence. I take up a volume of Doctor Smollett, or a vol- 
ume of the " Spectator," and say the fiction carries a 
greater amount of truth in solution than the volume which 
purports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get the 
expression of the life of the time, — of the manners, of the 
movement, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridi- 
cules of society; the old times live again, and I travel in the 
old country of England. Can the heaviest historian do 
more for me? " 

As we read in these delightful volumes of the " Tatler " 
and '* Spectator " the past age returns, — the England of 
our ancestors is revivified. The Maypole rises in the 
Strand again in London ; the churches are crowded with 
daily worshippers; the beaux are gathering in the coffee- 
houses; the gentry are going to the Drawing-room; the 
ladies are thronging to the toy-shops; the chairmen are 
jostling in the streets; the footmen are running with links 
before the chariots, or fighting round the theatre doors. 
In the country I see the young Squire riding to Eton with 
his servants behind him, and Will Wimble the friend of 
the family to see him safe. To make that journey from 
the Squire's and back, Will is a week on horseback. The 
coach takes five days between London and Bath. The 
judges and the bar ride the circuit. If my Lady comes to 
town in her post-chariot, her people carry pistols to fire a 
salute on Captain Macheath if he should appear, and her 
couriers ride ahead to prepare apartments for her at the 
great caravansaries on the road; Boniface receives her 



STEELE 95 

under the creaking sign of the Bell or the Ram, and he 
and his chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the 
state apartments, whilst her carriage rumbles into the 
courtyard, where the Exeter Fly is housed that performs 
the journey in eight days, God willing, having achieved 
its daily flight of twenty miles, and landed its passengers 
for supper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe in the 
kitchen, where the Captain's man — having hung up his 
master's half-pike — is at his bacon and eggs, bragging of 
Ramillies and Malplaquet to the townsfolk, who have 
their club in the chimney-corner. The Captain is ogling 
the chambermaid in the wooden gallery, or bribing her to 
know who is the pretty young mistress that has come in 
the coach. The pack-horses are in the great stable, and 
the drivers and hostlers carousing in the tap. And in Mrs. 
Landlady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a 
gentleman of military appearance, who travels with 
pistols, as all the rest of the world does, and has a 
rattling gray mare in the stables which will be saddled 
and away with its owner half-an-hour before the Fly 
sets out on its last day's flight. And some five miles 
on the road, as the Exeter Fly comes jingling and 
creaking onwards, it will suddenly be brought to a halt 
by a gentleman on a gray mare, with a black vizard 
on his face, who thrusts a long pistol into the coach win- 
dow, and bids the company to hand out their purses. . . . 
It must have been no small pleasure even to sit in the 
great kitchen in those days, and see the tide of humankind 
pass by. We arrive at places now, but we travel no more. 
Addison talks jocularly of a difference of manner and 
costume being quite perceivable at Staines, where there 



96 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

passed a young fellow " with a very tolerable periwig," 
though, to be sure, his hat w^as out of fashion, and had a 
Ramillies cock. I would have liked to travel in those 
days (being of that class of travellers who are proverbially 
pretty easy coram latronibus) , and have seen my friend 
with the gray mare and the black vizard. Alas! there 
always came a day in the life of that warrior w^hen it was 
the fashion to accompany him as he passed — without his 
black mask, and with a nosegay in his hand, accompanied 
by halberdiers and attended by the sheriff — in a carriage 
without springs and a clergyman jolting beside him, to a 
spot close by Cumberland Gate and the Marble Arch, 
where a stone still records that here Tyburn turnpike 
stood. What a change in a century — in a few years ! 
Within a few yards of that gate the fields began, — the 
fields of his exploits, behind the hedges of which he lurked 
and robbed. A great and wealthy city has grown over 
those meadows. Were a man brought to die there now, 
the windows would be closed and the inhabitants keep 
their houses in sickening horror. A hundred ^'ears back, 
people crowded to see that last act of a highwayman's life, 
and make jokes on it. Swift laughed at him, grimly 
advising him to provide a Holland shirt and a white cap 
crowned with a crimson or black ribbon for his exit; to 
mount the cart cheerfully, shake hands with the hangman, 
and so — farewell. Gay wrote the most delightful ballads, 
and made merry over the same hero. Contrast these with 
the writings of our present humorists! Compare those 
morals and ours, those manners and ours! 

We cannot tell — you w^ould not bear to be told — the 
whole truth regarding those men and manners. You 



STEELE 97 

could no more suffer in a British drawing-room, under 
the reign of Queen Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lady 
of Queen Anne's time, or hear what they heard and said, 
than you would receive an ancient Briton. It is as one 
reads about savages that one contemplates the wild ways, 
the barbarous feasts, the terrific pastimes, of the men of 
pleasure of that age. We have our fine gentlemen and 
our " fast men;" permit me to give you an idea of one 
particularly fast nobleman of Queen Anne's days, whose 
biography has been preserved to us by the law reporters. 
In 1691, when Steele was a boy at school, my Lord 
Mohun was tried by his peers for the murder of William 
Mountford, comedian. In " Howell's State Trials," the 
reader will find not only an edifying account of this 
exceedingly fast nobleman, but of the times and manners 
of those days. My Lord's friend, a Captain Hill, smitten 
with the charms of the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle, and 
anxious to marry her at all hazards, determined to carry 
her off, and for this purpose hired a hackney-coach with 
six horses and a half-dozen of soldiers to aid him in the 
storm. The coach with a pair of horses (the four leaders 
being in waiting elsewhere) took its station opposite my 
Lord Craven's house in Drury Lane, by which door Mrs. 
Bracegirdle was to pass on her way from the theatre. As 
she passed in company of her mamma and a friend, Mr. 
Page, the Captain seized her by the hand, the soldiers 
hustled Mr. Page and attacked him sword in hand, and 
Captain Hill and his noble friend endeavored to force 
Madarn Bracegirdle into the coach. Mr. Page called for 
help ; the population of Drury Lane rose. It was impossi- 
ble to effect the capture ; and bidding the soldiers go about 



98 ENGLISH HUiMORISTS 

thefr business and the coach to drive off, Hill let go of 
his prey, sulkily, and he waited for other opportunities of 
revenge. The man of whom he was most jealous was 
Will Mountford, the comedian. Will removed, he 
thought Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his; and accordingly 
the Captain and his Lordship lay that night in wait for 
Will, and as he was coming out of a house in Norfolk 
street, while Mohun engaged him in talk, Hill, in the 
words of the Attorney-General, made a pass and ran him 
clean through the body. 

Sixty-one of my Lord's peers finding him not guilty of 
murder, while but fourteen found him guilty, this very 
fast nobleman was discharged, and made his appearance 
seven years after in another trial for murder ; w^hen he, 
my Lord Warwick, and three gentlemen of the military 
profession, were concerned in the fight which ended in the 
death of Captain Coote. 

This jolly company were drinking together in Lockit's 
at Charing Cross, when angry words arose between Cap- 
tain Coote and Captain French, whom my Lord Mohun 
and my Lord the Earl of Warw ick and Holland endeav- 
ored to pacify. My Lord Warwick was a dear friend of 
Captain Coote, lent him a hundred pounds to buy his 
commission in the Guards. Once when the Captain was 
arrested for £13 by his tailor, my Lord lent him five 
guineas, often paid his reckoning for him, and showed him 
other offices of friendship. On this evening, the dispu- 
tants, French and Coote, being separated whilst they were 
upstairs, unluckily stopped to drink ale again at the bar 
of Lockit's. The row began afresh. Coote lunged at 
French over the bar; and at last all six called for chairs, 



STEELE 99 

and went to Leicester Fields, where they fell to. Their 
Lordships engaged on the side of Captain Coote. My 
Lord of Warwick was severely wounded in the hand; 
Mr. French also was stabbed; but honest Captain Coote 
got a couple of wounds, — one especially, "a wound in 
the left side just under the short ribs, and piercing through 
the diaphragma," which did for Captain Coote. Hence 
the trials of my Lords Warwick and Mohun ; hence the 
assemblage of peers, the report of the transaction in which 
these defunct fast men still live for the observation of 
the curious. My Lord of Warwick is brought to the 
bar by the Deputy-Governor of the Tower of London, 
having the axe carried before him by the gentleman 
jailer, who stood with it at the bar at the right hand of 
the prisoner, turning the edge from hirri — the prisoner, 
at his approach, making three bows, one to his Grace 
the Lord High Steward, the other to the peers on each 
hand ; and his Grace and the peers return the salute. 
And besides these great personages, august in periwigs 
and nodding to the right and left, a host of the small 
come up out of the past and pass before us, — the jolly 
captains brawling in the tavern, and laughing and curs- 
ing over their cups; the drawer that serves, the bar-girl 
that waits, the bailiff on the prowl, the chairmen trudging 
through the black, lampless streets, and smoking their 
pipes by the railings, whilst swords are clashing in the 
garden within. "Help there! a gentleman is hurt!" 
The chairmen put up their pipes, and help the gentleman 
over the railings, and carry him, ghastly and bleeding, 
to the Bagnio in Long Acre, where they knock up the 
surgeon, a pretty tall gentleman ; but that wound under 
the short ribs has done for him. 



100 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Surgeon, lords, captains, bailiffs, chairmen, and gentle- 
man jailer with your axe, where be 50U now? The 
gentleman axeman's head is off his own shoulders; the 
lords and judges can wag theirs no longer; the bailiff's 
writs have ceased to run; the honest chairmen's pipes 
are put out, and with their brawny calves they have 
walked away into Hades. All is irrecoverably done for 
as Will Mountford or Captain Coote. The subject of 
our night's lecture saw all these people, rode in Captain 
Coote's company of the Guards very probably, wrote 
and sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy in many 
a chair, after many a bottle, in many a tavern, and fled 
from many a bailiff. 

In 1709, w^hen the publication of the " Tatler " 
began, our great-great-grandfathers must have seized upon 
that new and delightful paper with much such eagerness 
as lovers of light literature in a later day exhibited 
when the Waverley novels appeared, upon which the 
public rushed, — forsaking that feeble entertainment of 
which the Miss Porters, the Anne of Swanseas, and 
worthy Mrs. Radcliffe herself, with her dreary castles 
and exploded old ghosts, had had pretty much the 
monopoly. I have looked over many of the comic books 
with which our ancestors amused themselves, — from the 
novels of Swift's coadjutrix, Mrs. Manley, the delectable 
author of the '' New Atlantis," to the facetious produc- 
tions of Tom Durfey and Tom Brown and Ned Ward, 
writer of the '' London Spy," and several other volumes 
of ribaldry. The slang of the taverns and ordinaries, 
the wit of the bagnios, form the strongest part of the 
farrago of which these libels are composed. In the 



STEELE 101 

excellent newspaper collection at the British Museum 
you maj' see, besides the " Craftsmen" and " Postboy," 
specimens — and queer specimens they are — of the higher 
literature of Queen Anne's time. Here is an abstract 
from a notable journal bearing date Wednesday, October 
13, 1708, and entitled "The British Apollo; Or, Curious 
Amusements for the Ingenious, by a Society of Gen- 
tlemen." The " British Apollo " invited and professed 
to answer questions upon all subjects of wit, morality, 
science, and even religion ; and two out of its four pages 
are filled with queries and replies much like some of 
the oracular penny prints of the present time. 

One of the first querists, referring to the passage 
that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, argues 
that polygamy is justifiable in the laity. The Society 
of Gentlemen conducting the " British Apollo " are 
posed by this casuist, and promise to give him an answer. 
Celinda then wishes to know from " the gentlemen," 
concerning the souls of the dead, whether they shall 
have the satisfaction to know those whom they most 
valued in this transitory life. The gentlemen of the 
" Apollo " give but cold comfort to poor Celinda. They 
are inclined to think not; for, say they, since every 
inhabitant of those regions will be infinitely dearer than 
here are our nearest relatives, what have we to do with 
a partial friendship in that happy place? Poor Celinda! 
it may have been a child or a lover whom she had lost 
and was pining after, when the oracle of " British 
Apollo " gave her this dismal answer. She has solved 
the question for herself by this time, and knows quite 
as well as the Society of Gentlemen. 



102 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

From theology we come to phj'sics, and Q. asks, " Why 
does hot water freeze sooner than cold?" Apollo 
replies: "Hot water cannot be said to freeze sooner 
than cold ; but water once heated and cold may be sub- 

5 ject to freeze by the evaporation of the spirituous parts 
of the water, which renders it less able to withstand 
the power of frosty weather." 

The next query is rather a delicate one. '' You, 
Mr. Apollo, who are said to be the God of Wisdom, 

10 pray give us the reason why kissing is so much in 
fashion, what benefit one receives by it, and who was 
the inventor, and 3^ou will oblige Corinna." To this 
queer demand the lips of Phoebus, smiling, answer: 
''Pretty, innocent Corinna! Apollo owns that he was 

in a little surprised by jour kissing question, particularly 
at that part of it where 30U desire to know the benefit 
you receive by it. Ah, madam ! had you a lover, you 
would not come to Apollo for a solution, since there is 
no dispute but the kisses of mutual lovers give infinite 

•JO satisfaction. As to its invention, it is certain Nature 
was its author, and it began with the first courtship." 

After a column more of questions, follow nearly two 
pages of poems, signed by Philander, Ardelia, and the 
like, and chiefly on the tender passion; and the paper 

20 winds up with a letter from Leghorn, an account of 
the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene before 
Lille, and proposals for publishing two sheets on the 
present state of Ethiopia, by Mr. Hill, — all of w^hich 
is printed for the authors by J. Mayo, at the Printing 

30 Press against Walter Lane in Fleet Street. What 
a change it must have been — how Apollo's oracles must 



STEELE 103 

have been struck dumb — when the " Tatler " appeared, 
and scholars, gentlemen, men of the world, men of genius, 
began to speak ! 

Shortly before the Boyne w^as fought, and young 
Swift had begun to make acquaintance wnth English 
Court manners and English servitude in Sir William 
Temple's family, another Irish youth was brought to 
learn his humanities at the old school of Charterhouse, 
near Smithfield ; to which foundation he had been 
appointed by James Duke of Ormond, a governor of the 
House, and a patron of the lad's family. The boy was 
an orphan, and described twenty years after, with a 
swTet pathos and simplicity, some of the earliest recollec- 
tions of a life which w^as destined to be checkered by a 
strange variety of good and evil fortune. 

I am afraid no good report could be given by his 
masters and ushers of that thick-set, square-faced, black- 
eyed, soft-hearted little Irish boy. He was very idle. 
He was whipped deservedly a great number of times. 
Though he had very good parts of his own, he got other 
boys to do his lessons for him, and only took just as 
much trouble as should enable him to scuffle through his 
exercises, and by good fortune escape the flogging-block. 
One hundred and fifty years after I have myself inspected, 
but only as an amateur, that instrument of righteous 
torture still existing and in occasional use in a secluded 
private apartment of the old Charterhouse School, and 
have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if not the 
ancient and interesting machine itself, at which poor 
Dick Steele submitted himself to the tormentors. 

Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this 



104 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

boy went invariably into debt with the tart-woman; ran 
out of bounds, and entered into pecuniary or rather 
promissory engagements with the neighboring lollipop 
venders and piemen ; exhibited an early fondness and 

5 capacity for drinking mum and sack, and borrowed from 
all his comrades who had money to lend. I have no 
sort of authority for the statements here made of Steele's 
early life ; but if the child is father of the man, — the 
father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford 

10 without taking a degree, and entered the Life Guards ; 
the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who 
got his company through the patronage of my Lord 
Cutts; the father of Mr. Steele the Commissioner of 
Stamps, the editor of the " Gazette," the " Tatler," and 

15 ** Spectator," the expelled Member of Parliament, and 

the author of the '* Tender Husband " and the " Conscious 

. Lovers," — if man and boy resembled each other, Dick 

Steele the schoolboy must have been one of the m.ost 

generous, good-for-nothing, amiable little creatures that 

20 ever conjugated the verb tupto, " I beat," tuptoma'i, " I 
am whipped," in any school in Great Britain. 

Almost every gentleman who does me the honor to 
hear me will remember that the very greatest character 
which he has seen in the course of his life, and the 

25 person to whom he has looked up with the greatest 
wonder and reverence, was the head boy at his school. 
The schoolmaster himself hardly inspires such an awe. 
The head boy construes as well as the schoolmaster him- 
self. When he begins to speak the hall is hushed, and 

30 every little boy listens. He writes of¥ copies of Latin 
verses as melodiously as Virgil. He is good-natured, and. 



STEELE i05 

his own masterpiece achieved, pours out other copies of 
verses for other boys with an astonishing ease and 
fluency, — the idle ones only trembling lest they should 
be discovered on giving in their exercises, and w^hipped 
because their poems were too good. I have seen great 
men in my time, but never such a great one as that 
head boy of my childhood ; we all thought he must be 
Prime Minister, and I was disappointed on meeting him 
in after life to find he was no more than six feet high. 

) Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such 
an admiration in the years of his childhood, and retained 
it faithfully through his life. Through the school and 
through the world, whithersoever his strange fortune 
led this erring, wayward, affectionate creature, Joseph 

5 Addison w^as always his head boy. Addison wrote his 
exercises; Addison did his best themes. He ran on 
Addison's messages; fagged for him, and blacked his 
shoes. To be in Joe's company w^as Dick's greatest 
pleasure; and he took a sermon or a caning from his 

> monitor with the most boundless reverence, acquiescence, 
and affection. 

Steele found Addison a stately college Don at Oxford, 
and himself did not make much figure at this place. 
He wrote a comedy, which by the advice of a friend the 

5 humble fellow burned there, and some verses, which I 
dare say are as sublime as other gentlemen's compositions 
at that age; but being smitten with a sudden love for 
military glory, he threw up the cap and gown for the 
saddle and bridle, and rode privately in the Horse Guards, 

t^ in the Duke of Ormond's troop (the second) and prob- 
ably wnth the rest of the gentlemen of his troop, — " all 



106 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

mounted on black horses with white feathers in their 
hats, and scarlet coats richly laced," — marched by King 
William in Hyde Park in November, 1699, and a great 
show of the nobility, besides twenty thousand people 
and above a thousand coaches. " The Guards had just 
got their new clothes,'' the London "Post" said; "they 
are extraordinary grand, and thought to be the finest body 
of horse in the world." But Steele could hardly have 
seen any actual service. He who wrote about himself, 
his mother, his wife, his loves, his debts, his friends, and 
the wine he drank, would have told us of his battles 
if he had seen any. His old patron, Ormond, probably 
got him his cornetcy in the Guards, from which he was 
promoted to be a captain in Lucas's Fusiliers, getting his 
company through the patronage of Lord Cutts, whose 
secretary he was, and to whom he dedicated his work 
called the " Christian Hero." As poor Dick, whilst 
writing this ardent devotional work, was deep in debt, 
in drink, and in all the follies of the town, it is related 
that all the officers of Lucas's and the gentlemen of the 
Guards laughed at Dick; and in truth a theologian in 
liquor is not a respectable object, and a hermit, though he 
may be out at elbows, must not be in debt to the tailor. 
Steele says of himself that he was always sinning and 
repenting. He beat his breast and cried most piteously 
when he did repent; but as soon as crying had made 
him thirsty, he fell to sinning again. In that charming 
paper in the " Tatler " in which he records his father's 
death, his mother's griefs, his own most solemn and 
tender emotions, he says he is interrupted by the arrival 
of a hamper of wine, " the same as is to be sold at 



STEELE 107 

Garraway's next week," — upon the receipt of which he 
sends for three friends, and they fall to instantly, " drink- 
ing two bottles apiece, with great benefit to themselves, 
and not separating till two o'clock in the morning." 

His life was so. Jack the drawer was always inter- 
rupting it, bringing him a bottle from the Rose, or inviting 
him over to a bout there with Sir Plume and Mr. Diver; 
and Dick wiped his eyes, which were whimpering over 
his papers, took down his laced hat, put on his sword 
and wig, kissed his wife and children, told them a lie 
about pressing business, and went off to the Rose to the 
jolly fellows. 

While Mr. Addison w^as abroad, and after he came 
home in rather a dismal way to wait upon Providence 
in his shabby lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain 
Steele was cutting a much smarter figure than that of 
his classical friend of Charterhouse Cloister and Maudlin 
Walk. Could not some painter give an interview between 
the gallant Captain of Lucas's with his hat cocked, and 
his lace (and his face too) a trifle tarnished with drink, 
and that poet, that philosopher, pale, proud, and poor, his 
friend and monitor of schooldays, of all days ? How Dick 
must have bragged about his chances and his hopes, and 
the fine company he kept, and the charms of the reigning 
toasts and popular actresses, and the number of bottles 
that he and my Lord and some other pretty fellows 
had cracked over-night at the Devil, or the Garter! 
Cannot one fancy Joseph Addison's calm smile and cold 
gray eyes following Dick for an instant, as he struts down 
the Mall to dine with the Guard at Saint James's, before 
he turns, with his sober pace and threadbare suit, to 



108 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

walk back to his lodgings up the two pair of stairs? 
Steele's name was down for promotion (Dick always 
said himself) in the glorious, pious, and immortal Wil- 
liam's last table-book. Jonathan Swift's name had been 
written there by the same hand, too. 

Our worthy friend, the author of the " Christian 
Hero," continued to make no small figure about town 
by the use of his wits. He was appointed Gazetteer ; 
he wrote, in 1703, "The Tender Husband," his second 
play, in which there is some delightful farcical writing, 
and of which he fondly owned in after life, and when 
Addison was no more, that there were " many applauded 
strokes " from Addison's beloved hand. Is it not a pleasant 
partnership to remember? Cannot one fancy Steele, full 
of spirits and youth, leaving his gay company to go to 
Addison's lodging, where his friend sits in the shabby 
sitting-room, quite serene and cheerful and poor? In 
1704 Steele came on the town with another comedy; 
and behold it was so moral and religious, as poor Dick 
insisted (so dull the town thought), that the " Lj-ing 
Lover " was damned. 

Addison's hour of success now came, and he was able 
to help our friend the " Christian Hero " in such a way, 
that, if there had been any chance of keeping that poor 
tipsy champion upon his legs, his fortune was safe and 
his competence assured. Steele procured the place of 
Commissioner of Stamps. He wrote so richly, so grace- 
fully often, so kindly always, with such a pleasant wit 
and easy frankness, with such a gush of good spirits 
and good humor, that his early papers may be compared 
to Addison's own, and are to be read, by a male reader 
at least, with quite an equal pleasure. 



STEELE 109 

After the " Tatler " in 1711, the famous " Spectator " 
made its appearance; and this was followed, at various 
intervals, by many periodicals under the same editor, — 
the " Guardian;" the " Englishman;" the " Lover," whose 
love was rather insipid ; the " Reader," of whom the 
public saw no more after his second appearance ; the 
" Theatre," under the pseudonym of Sir John Edgar, 
which Steele wrote while governor of the Royal Com- 
pany of Comedians, to which post, and to that of Surveyor 
of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, and to the 
Commission of the Peace for Middlesex, and to the honor 
of knighthood, Steele had been preferred soon after the 
accession of George I., — whose cause honest Dick had 
nobly fought, through disgrace and danger, against the 
most formidable enemies, against traitors and bullies, 
against Bolingbroke and Swift, in the last reign. With 
the arrival of the King that splendid conspiracy broke 
up, and a golden opportunity came to Dick Steele, whose 
hand, alas! was too careless to gripe it. 

Steele married twice, and outlived his places, his 
schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and almost 
everything but his kind heart. That ceased to trouble 
him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost for- 
gotten by his contemporaries, in Wales, where he had the 
remnant of a property. 

Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature. 
All women especially are bound to be grateful to Steele, 
as he was the first of our wTiters who really seemed to 
admire and respect them. Congreve the Great, who 
alludes to the low estimation in which women were held 
in Elizabeth's time as a reason why the women of 



110 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Shakspere make so small a figure in the poet's dialogues, 
though he can himself pay splendid compliments to 
women, yet looks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, 
and destined, like the most consummate fortifications, to 
fall after a certain time before the arts and bravery of 
the besieger, man. There is a letter of Swift's entitled 
" Advice to a very Young Married Lady," which shows 
the Dean's opinion of the female society of his day, and 
that if he despised man he utterly scorned women too. 
No lady of our time could be treated by any man, were 
he ever so much a wit or Dean, in such a tone of insolent 
patronage and vulgar protection. In this performance 
Swift hardly takes pains to hide his opinion that a 
woman is a fool ; tells her to read books, as if reading 
was a novel accomplishment, and informs her, that 
" not one gentleman's daughter in a thousand has been 
brought to read or understand her own natural tongue." 
Addison laughs at women equally, but with the gen- 
tleness and politeness of his nature smiles at them and 
watches them as if they were harmless, half-witted, 
amusing, pretty creatures, only made to be men's play- 
things. It was Steele who first began to pay a manly 
homage to their goodness and understanding, as wxU as 
to their tenderness and beauty. In his comedies the 
heroes do not rant and rave about the divine beauties 
of Gloriana or Statira, as the characters were made to 
do in the chivalry romances and the high-flown dramas 
just going out of vogue; but Steele admires women's 
virtue, acknowledges their sense, and adores their purity 
and beauty with an ardor and strength which should 
win the good-will of all women to their hearty and 



STEELE 111 

respectful champion. It is this ardor, this respect, this 
manliness, which makes his comedies so pleasant and 
their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid the finest 
compliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. 
Of one woman, whom Congreve had also admired and 
celebrated, Steele says that " to have loved her was a 
liberal education." " How often," he says, dedicating 
a volume to his w^ife, " how often has your tenderness 
removed pain from my sick head, how often anguish 
from my afflicted heart! If there are such beings as 
guardian angels, they are thus employed. I cannot 
believe one of them to be more good in inclination, or 
more charming in form, than my wife." His breast 
seems to warm and his ej^es to kindle when he meets 
with a good and beautiful woman, and it is with his 
heart as well as with his hat that he salutes her. About 
children, and all that relates to home, he is not less 
tender, and more than once speaks in apology of what 
he calls his softness. He would have been nothing with- 
out that delightful weakness. It is that which gives 
his works their worth and his style its charm. It, like 
his life^ is full of faults and careless blunders, and 
redeemed, like that, by his sweet and compassionate 
nature. 

We possess of poor Steele's wild and checkered life 
some of the most curious memoranda that ever were 
left of a man's biography. Most men's letters, from 
Cicero down to Walpole, or down to the great men of 
our time if you will, are doctored compositions, and writ- 
ten with an eye suspicious towards posterity. That 
dedication of Steele's to his wife is an artificial per- 



112 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

formance, possibly; at least, it is written with that degree 
of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a state- 
ment for the House, or a poet employs in preparing a 
sentiment in verse or for the stage. But there are some 
four hundred letters of Dick Steele's to his wife, which 
that thrifty woman preserved accurately, and which could 
have been written for her and her alone. They contain 
details of the business, pleasures, quarrels, reconcilia- 
tions, of the pair; they have all the genuineness of 
conversation ; they are as artless as a child's prattle, 
and as confidential as a curtain-lecture. Some are 
written from the printing-office, where he is waiting for 
the proof-sheets of his " Gazette " or his " Tatler" ; 
some are written from the tavern, whence he promises 
to come to his wife ** within a pint of wine," and 
where he has given a rendezvous to a friend or a money- 
lender ; some are composed in a high state of vinous 
excitement, when his head is flustered with burgundy, 
and his heart abounds with amorous warmth for his 
darling Prue; some are under the influence of the dismal 
headache and repentance next morning; some, alas! are 
from the lock-up house, where the lawyers have 
impounded him, and where he is waiting for bail. You 
trace many 3'ears of the poor fellow's career in these 
letters. In September, 1707, from which day she began 
to save the letters, he married the beautiful Mistress 
Scurlock. You have his passionate protestations to the 
lady, his respectful proposals to her mamma, his private 
prayer to Heaven when the union so ardently desired 
was completed ; his fond professions of contrition and 
promises of amendment when, immediately after his 



STEELE 113 

marriage, there began to be just cause for the one and 
need for the other. 

Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their 
marriage, " the third door from Germain Street, left 
hand of Berry Street," and the next year he presented 
his wife with a country house at Hampton. It appears 
she had a chariot and pair, and sometimes four horses ; 
he himself enjoyed a little horse for his own riding. 
He paid, or promised to pay, his barber fifty pounds a 
year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a large 
black-buckled periwig that must have cost somebody fifty 
guineas. He was rather a well-to-do gentleman, Captain 
Steele, with the proceeds of his estates in Barbadoes 
(left to him by his first wife), his income as a writer 
of the " Gazette," and his office of gentleman waiter to 
his Royal Highness Prince George. His second wife 
brought him a fortune too. But it is melancholy to 
relate that with these houses and chariots and horses 
and income the Captain was constantly in want of 
money, for which his beloved bride was asking as con- 
stantly. In the course of a few pages we begin to find 
the shoemaker calling for money, and some directions 
from the Captain, who has not thirty pounds to spare. 
He sends his wife, " the beautifuUest object in the world " 
as he calls her, and evidently in reply to applications of 
her own, which have gone the way of all w^aste paper 
and lighted Dick's pipes, which were smoked a hundred 
and forty years ago, — he sends his wife now a guinea, 
then a half-guinea, then a couple of guineas, then half 
a pound of tea; and again no money and no tea at 
all, but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some 



114 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

in a day or two ; or a request, perhaps, that she will 
send over his night-gown and shaving-plate to the tem- 
porary lodging where the nomadic Captain is lying, 
hidden from the bailiffs. Oh that a Christian hero and 
late Captain in Lucas's should be afraid of a dirty 
sheriff's officer ! that the pink and pride of chivalry 
should turn pale before a writ! It stands to record in 
poor Dick's own handwriting (the queer collection is 
preserved at the British Museum to this present day) 
that the rent of the nuptial house in Jermyn Street, 
sacred to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three 
doors from Bury Street, was not paid until after the 
landlord had put in an execution on Captain Steele's 
furniture. Addison sold the house and furniture at 
Hampton, and after deducting the sum in which his 
incorrigible friend was indebted to him, handed over 
the residue of the proceeds of the sale to poor Dick, 
who was not in the least angry at Addison's summary 
proceeding, and I dare say was very glad of any sale 
or execution, the result of which was to give him a little 
ready money. Having a small house in Jermyn Street 
for which he could not pay, and a country house at 
Hampton on which he had borrowed money, nothing 
must content Captain Dick but the taking, in 1712, a 
much finer, larger, and grander house in Bloomsbury 
Square, — where his unhappy landlord got no better sat- 
isfaction than his friend in Saint James's, and where it 
is recorded that Dick, giving a grand entertainment, 
had a half-dozen queer-looking fellows in livery to wait 
upon his noble guests, and confessed that his servants 
were bailiffs to a man. " I fared like a distressed prince," 



STEELE 115 

the kindly prodigal writes, generously complimenting 
Addison for his assistance in the " Tatler," — "I fared 
like a distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbor 
to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary: when I 
had once called him in, I could not subsist without 
dependence on him." Poor, needy Prince of Blooms- 
bury! think of him in his palace, with his allies from 
Chancery Lane ominously guarding him. 

All sorts of stories are told indicative of his reckless- 
ness and his good-humor. One narrated by Doctor 
Hoadly is exceedingly characteristic; it shows the life 
of the time, and our poor friend very weak, but very 
kind both in and out of his cups. 

" My father," says Doctor John Hoadly, the Bishop's son, 
" when Bishop of Bangor, was by invitation present at one of the 
Whig meetings held at the Trumpet, in Shoe Lane, when Sir 
Richard in his zeal rather exposed himself, having the double 
duty of the day upon him, — as well to celebrate the immortal 
memory of King William, it being the 4th November, as to drink 
his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, whose phlegmatic 
constitution was hardly warmed for society by that time. Steele 
was not fit for it. Two remarkable circumstances happened. 
John Sly, the hatter of facetious memory, was in the house ; and, 
John, pretty mellow, took it into his head to come into the com- 
pany on his knees, with a tankard of ale in his hand to drink 
off to the immortal memory, and to return in the same manner. 
Steele, sitting next my father, whispered him: 'Do laugh! It is 
humanity to laugh.' Sir Richard in the evening, being too much 
in the same condition, was put into a chair and sent home. 
Nothing would serve him but being carried to the Bishop of 
Bangor's, late as it was. However, the chairmen carried him 
home, and got him upstairs, when his great complaisance would 
wait on them downstairs, which he did, and then was got quietly 
«^o bed." 



116 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

There is another amusing story, which I believe that 
renowned collector Mr. Joseph Miller, or his successors, 
have incorporated into their work. Sir Richard Steele, 
at a time when he was much occupied with theatrical 
affairs, built himself a pretty private theatre, and before 
it was opened to his friends and guests was anxious to 
try whether the hall was well adapted for hearing. 
Accordingly he placed himself in the most remote part 
of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built 
the house to speak up from the stage. The man at 
first said that he was unaccustomed to public speaking, 
and did not know what to say to his Honor; but the 
good-natured knight called out to him to say whatever 
was uppermost ; and after a moment the carpenter began, 
in a voice perfectly audible: "Sir Richard Steele!" he 
said, " for three months past me and my men has been 
a working in this theatre, and we've never seen the color 
of your Honor's money. We will be very much obliged 
if you'll pay it directly, for until you do we won't 
drive in another nail." Sir Richard said that his friend's 
elocution was perfect, but that he didn't like his subject 
much. 

The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. 
He wrote so q-iickly and carelessly that he was forced 
to make the reader his confidant, and had not the time 
to deceive him. He had a small share of book-learning, 
but a vast acquaintance with the world. He had known 
men and taverns. He had lived with gownsmen, with 
troopers, with gentlemen ushers of the Court, with men 
and women of fashion, with authors and wits, with 
the inmates of the sponging-houses, and with <-he fre- 



STEELE 117 

quenters of all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town. 
He was liked in all company because he liked it ; and 
you like to see his enjoyment as you like to see the 
glee of a box full of children at the pantomime. He 
was not of those lonely ones of the earth whose 
greatness obliged them to be solitary; on the contrary, 
he admired, I think, more than any man who ever 
wrote, and, full of hearty applause and sympathy, wins 
upon you by calling you to share his delight and good- 
humor. His laugh rings through the whole house. 
He must have been invaluable at a tragedy, and have 
cried as much as the most tender young lady in the 
boxes. He has a relish for beauty and goodness wherever 
he meets it. He admired Shakspere affectionately, and 
more than any man of his time and according to his 
generous expansive nature called upon all his company 
to like what he liked himself. He did not damn with 
faint praise: he was in the world and of it; and his 
enjoyment of life presents the strangest contrast to Swift's 
savage indignation and Addison's lonely serenity. Permit 
me to read to you a passage from each writer, curiously 
indicative of his peculiar humor; the subject is the same, 
and the mood the very gravest. We have said that 
upon all the actions of man, the most trifling and the 
most solemn, the humorist takes upon himself to comment. 
All readers of our old masters know the terrible lines 
of Swift, in which he hints at his philosophy and describes 
the end of mankind : — 

" Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, 
The world stood trembling at Jove's throne. 
While each pale sinner hung his head. 



118 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said: 

' Offending race of human kind. 
By nature, reason, learning, blind ; 
You who through frailty stepped aside, 
And you who never erred through pride ; 
You who in different sects were shammed, 
And come to see each other damned 
(So some folk told you, but they knew 
No more of Jove's designs than you), — 
The world's mad business now is o'er. 
And I resent your freaks no more. 
/ to such blockheads set my wit ; 
I damn such fools — go, go, you're bit!'" 

Addison speaking on the very same theme, but with 
! ow different a voice, says, in his famous paper on 
Westminster Abbey (" Spectator," No. 26) : — 

" For my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know 
what it is to be melancholy, and can therefore take a view of 
Nature in her deep and solemn scenes with the same pleasure as 
in her most gay and delightful on^s. When I look upon the 
tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies within me; when 
I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes 
out; when I meet with the grief of parents on a tombstone, my 
heart melts with compassion ; when I see the tomb of the parents 
themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those we must 
quickly follow." 

I have owned that I do not think Addison's heart 
melted very much, or that he indulged very inordinately 
in the " vanity of grieving." 

" When," he goes on, " when I see kings lying by those who 
deposed them; when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or 
the holy men that divided the world with their contests and dis- 
putes, — I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little com- 



STEELE 119 

petitions, factions, and debates of mankind. And when I read 
the several dates on the tombs of some that died yesterday, and 
some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we 
shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance 
together." 

Our third humorist comes to speak upon the same 
subject. You will have observed in the previous extracts 
the characteristic humor of each writer, the subject and 
the contrast, the fact of Death, and the play of indi- 
vidual thought by which each comments on it ; and now 
hear the third writer, — death, sorrow, and the grave 
being for the moment also his theme. 

" The first sense of sorrow I ever knew," Steele says in the 
" Tatler," " was upon the death of my father, at which time I was 
not quite five years of age, but was rather amazed at what all the 
house meant, than possessed of a real understanding why nobody 
would play with us. I remember I went into the room where his 
body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my 
battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin and calling 
papa ; for, I know not how, I had some idea that he was locked 
up there. My mother caught me in her arms, and, transported 
beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she 
almost smothered me in her embraces, and told me in a flood of 
tears, ' Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no 
more ; for they were going to put him under ground, whence he 
would never come to us again.' She was a very beautiful woman, 
of a noble spirit; and there was a dignity in her grief, amidst 
all the wildness of her transport, which methought struck me with 
an instinct of sorrow that, before I was sensible what it was to 
grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of 
my heart ever since." 

Can there be three more characteristic moods of 
minds and men? "Fools, do you know anything of 



130 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

this mystery?" says Swift, stamping on a grave, and 
carrying his scorn for mankind actually beyond it. 
" Miserable, purblind wretches! how dare you to pre- 
tend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and how can your 
dim eyes pierce the unfathomable depths of yonder 
boundless heaven? " Addison, in a much kinder language 
and gentler voice, utters mych the same sentiment, and 
speaks of the rivalry of wits and the contests of holy 
men with the same sceptic placidity. " Look what a little 
vain dust we are," he says, smiling over the tombstones; 
and catching, as is his wont, quite a divine effulgence 
as he looks heavenward, he speaks, in words of inspira- 
tion almost, of " the Great Day, when we shall all of us 
be contemporaries, and make our appearance together." 

The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will 
speak his word of moral as Heaven teaches him, leads 
you up to his father's coffin, and shows you his beautiful 
mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy 
wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as 
he takes your hand and confidingly asks your sympathy. 
" See how good and innocent and beautiful women are," 
he says; ** how tender little children! Let us love these 
and one another, brother ; God knows we have need of 
love and pardon." 

So it is each man looks with his own eyes, speaks 
with his own voice, and prays his own prayer. 

When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors in 
that charming scene of Love and Grief and Death, who 
can refuse it? One yields to it as to the frank advance 
of a child, or to the appeal of a woman. A man is seldom 
more manlv than when he is what vou call unmanned ; 



STEELE 121 

the source of his emotion is championship, pity, and 
courage, — the instinctive desire to cherish those who are 
innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are tender 
and weak. If Steele is not our friend he is nothing. He 
is by no means the most brilliant of wits or the deepest 
of thinkers; but he is our friend: we love him, as chil- 
dren love their love with an A, because he is amiable. 
Who likes a man best because he is the cleverest or 
the wisest of mankind ; or a woman because she is the 
most virtuous, or talks French, or plays the piano better 
than the rest of her sex? I own to liking Dick Steele 
the man, and Dick Steele the author, much better than 
much better men and much better authors. 

The misfortune regarding Steele is that most part 
of the company here present must take his amiability 
upon hearsay, and certainly cannot make his intimate 
acquaintance. Not that Steele was worse than his time, 
— on the contrary, a far better, truer, and higher-hearted 
man than most who lived in it. But things were done 
in that society, and names were named, which w^ould 
make you shudder now. What would be the sensation 
of a polite youth of the present day, if at a ball he 
saw the young object of his affections taking a box 
out of her pocket and a pinch of snuf¥; or if at dinner, 
by the charmer's side, she deliberately put her knife 
into her mouth? If she cut her mother's throat with it, 
mamma would scarcely be more shocked. I allude to these 
peculiarities of bygone times as an excuse for my favorite 
Steele, who was not worse, and often much more delicate, 
than his neighbors. 

There exists a curious document descriptive of the 



122 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

manners of the last age, which describes most minutely 
the amusements and occupations of persons of fashion 
in London at the time of which we are speaking, — the 
time of Swift and Addison and Steele. 

When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel 
Alwit, the immortal personages of Swift's polite con- 
versation, came to breakfast with my Lady Smart at 
eleven o'clock in the morning, my Lord Smart was 
absent at the levee. His Lordship was at home to dinner 
at three o'clock to receive his guests ; and we may sit 
down to his meal, like the Barmecide's, and see the fops 
of the last century before us. Seven of them sat down 
at dinner, and were joined by a country baronet who 
told them they kept Court hours. These persons of 
fashion began their dinner w^ith a sirloin of beef, fish, a 
shoulder of veal, and a tongue. My Lady Smart carved 
the sirloin, my Lady Answerall helped the fish, and 
the gallant Colonel cut the shoulder of veal. All made 
a considerable inroad on the sirloin and the shoulder of 
veal with the exception of Sir John, who had no appetite, 
having already partaken of a beefsteak and two mugs of 
ale, besides a tankard of March beer as soon as he got 
out of bed. They drank claret, which the master of the 
house said should always be drunk after fish ; and my 
Lord Smart particularly recommended some excellent 
cider to my Lord Sparkish, which occasioned some bril- 
liant remarks from that nobleman. When the host 
called for wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, 
and said, *' Tom Neverout, my service to j^ou!" 

After the first course came almond-pudding and fritters, 
which the Colonel took with his hands out of the dish 



STEELE 123 

in order to help the briUfant Miss Notable; chickens, 
black puddings, and soup ; and Lady Smart, the elegant 
mistress of the mansion, finding a skewer in a dish, 
placed it in her plate with directions that it should be 
carried down to the cook and dressed for the cook's 
own dinner. Wine and small beer were drunk during 
this second course ; and when the Colonel called for 
beer, he called the butler " Friend," and asked whether 
the beer was good. Various jocular remarks passed 
from the gentlefolks to the servants; at breakfast several 
persons had a word and a joke for Mrs. Betty, my 
Lady's maid, who warmed the cream and had charge 
of the canister (the tea cost thirty shillings a pound in 
those days). When my Lady Sparkish sent her footman 
out to my Lady Match to come at six o'clock and play 
at quadrille, her Ladyship w^arned the man to follow 
his nose, and if he fell by the way not to stay to get up 
again ; and when the gentlemen asked the hall porter if 
his lady was at home, that functionary replied, with 
manly waggishness, " She was at home just now, but 
she's not gone out yet." 

After the puddings sweet and black, the fritters and 
soup, came the third course, of which the chief dish 
was a hot venison pasty, which was put before Lord 
Smart, and carved by that nobleman. Besides the pasty, 
there was a hare, a rabbit, some pigeons, partridges, a 
goose, and a ham. Beer and wine were freely imbibed 
during this course, the gentlemen always pledging some- 
body with every glass which they drank ; and by this 
time the conversation between Tom Neverout and Miss 
Notable had grown so brisk and lively that the Derby- 



124 ENGLISH HUiMORISTS 

shire baronet began to think the young gentlewoman 
wa"^ Tom's sweetheart, — on which Miss remarked 
that she loved Tom *' like pie." After the goose, some 
of the gentlemen took a dram of brandy, " which 
was very good for the w^holesomes," Sir John said; 
and now having had a tolerably substantial dinner, 
honest Lord Smart bade the butler bring up the great 
tankard full of October to Sir John. The great tankard 
was passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth; 
but when pressed by the noble host upon the gallant 
Tom Neverout, he said, *' No, faith, my Lord ; I like 
your wine, and w^on't put a churl upon a gentleman. 
Your Honor's claret is good enough for me." And 
so, the dinner over, the host said, " Hang saving! bring 
us up a ha'porth of cheese." 

The cloth was now taken away, and a bottle of 
burgundy was set down, of which the ladies w^re invited 
to partake before they went to their tea. When they 
withdrew, the gentlemen promised to join them in an 
hour. Fresh bottles were brought ; the ** dead men," 
meaning the empty bottles, removed; and " D'you hear, 
John ! bring clean glasses," my Lord Smart said. On 
w^hich the gallant Colonel Alwit said, " I'll keep my 
glass; for wine is the best liquor to wash glasses in." 

After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and 
then they all sat and played quadrille until three o'clock 
in the morning, when the chairs and the flambeaux 
came, and this noble company w^ent to bed. 

Such were manners six or seven score years ago. 
I draw no inference from this queer picture, — let all 
moralists here present deduce their own. Fancy the 



STEELE 125 

moral condition of that society in which a lady of fashion 
joked with a footman and carved a sirloin, and provided, 
besides, a great shoulder of veal, a goose, hare, rabbit, 
chickens, partridges, black puddings, and a ham for a 
dinner for eight Christians! What — what could have 
been the condition of that polite w^orld in which people 
openly ate goose after almond-pudding, and took their 
soup in the middle of dinner? Fancy a Colonel in the 
Guards putting his hand into a dish of beignets d'abricot 
and helping his neighbor, a young lady du mondel Fancy 
a noble lord calling out to the servants, before the ladies 
at his table, '' Hang expense! bring us a ha'porth of 
cheese!" Such were the ladies of Saint James's; such 
were the frequenters of White's Chocolate House when 
Swift used to visit it, and Steele described it as the 
centre of pleasure, gallantry, and entertainment a hun- 
dred and forty years ago! 

Dennis, who ran amuck at the literary society of 
his day, falls foul of poor Steele, and thus depicts him : — 

" Sir John Edgar, of the county of in Ireland, is of a 

middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the pic- 
ture of somebody over a farmer's chimney, a short chin, a short 
nose, a short forehead, a broad flat face, and a dusky counte- 
nance. Yet with such a face and such a shape, he discovered at 
sixty that he took himself for a beauty, and appeared to be more 
mortified at being told that he was ugly than he was by any 
reflection made upon his honor or understanding. 

" He is a gentleman born, witness himself, of very honorable 
family, — certainly of a very ancient one, for his ancestors flour- 
ished in Tipperary long before the English ever set foot in Ire- 
land. He has testimony of this more authentic than the Heralds' 
Office, or any human testimony ; for God has marked him more 
abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped his native country on 



126 p:nglish humorists 

his face, his understanding, his writings, his actions, his passions, 
and, above all, his vanity. The Hibernian brogue is still upon 
all these, though long habit and length of days have worn it off 
his tongue." 

Although this portrait is the work of a man who was 
neither the friend of Steele nor of any other man alive, 
yet there is a dreadful resemblance to the original in 
the savage and exaggerated traits of the caricature ; and 
everybody who knows him must recognize Dick Steele. 
Dick set about almost all the undertakings of his life 
with inadequate means ; and as he took and furnished 
a house with the most generous intentions towards his 
friends, the most tender gallantry towards his wife, and 
with this only drawback that he had not wherewithal 
to pay the rent when quarter-day came, so in his life 
he proposed to himself the most magnificent schemes 
of virtue, forbearance, public and private good, and the 
advancement of his own and the national religion. But 
when he had to pay for these articles, so difficult to 
purchase and so costly to maintain, poor Dick's money 
w^as not forthcoming; and when Virtue called with her 
little* bill, Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could 
not see her that morning, having a headache from being 
tipsy over-night ; or when stern Duty rapped at the 
door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready 
to pay. He was shirking at the tavern, or had some 
particular business (of somebody's else) at the ordinary, 
or he was in hiding, or, worse than in hiding, in the 
lock-up house. What a situation for a man, for a phi- 
lanthropist, for a lover of right and truth, for a magnificent 
designer and schemer, — not to dare to look in the face 



STEELE 127 

the religion which he adored, and which he had offended ; 
to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to 
avoid the friend whom he loved and who had trusted 
him ; to have the house which he had intended for his 
wife whom he loved passionately^ and for her Ladyship's 
company which he wished to entertain splendidly, in the 
possession of a bailiff's man, with a crowd of little cred- 
itors — grocers, butchers, and small-coal men — lingering 
round the door with their bills and jeering at him! Alas 
for poor Dick Steele! For nobody else, of course. 
There is no man or woman in our time who makes fine 
projects and gives them up from idleness or want of 
means. When Duty calls upon us, we no doubt are 
always at home and ready to pay that grim tax-gatherer. 
When wc are stricken with remorse and promise reform, 
we keep our promise, and are never angry or idle or 
extravagant any more. There are no chambers in our 
hearts destined for family friends and affections, and 
now occupied by some Sin's emissary and bailiff in pos- 
session. There are no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, 
importunate remembrances, or disappointed holders of our 
promises to reform, hovering at our steps or knocking at 
our door ! Of course not. We are living in the nineteenth 
century; and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up 
again, and got into jail and out again, and sinned and 
repented, and loved and suffered, and lived and died, 
scores of years ago. Peace be with him! Let us think 
gently of one who was so gentle; let us speak kindly of 
one whose own breast exuberated with human kindness. 



LECTURE THE FOURTH 

PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 

Matthew Prior was one of those famous and lucky 
wits of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, whose name it 
behooves us not to pass over. Mat was a world-philoso- 
pher of no small genius, good-nature, and acumen. He 
loved, he drank, he sang. He describes himself, in one of 
his lyrics, " in a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night; 
on his left hand his Horace, and a friend on his right," 
going out of town from The Hague to pass that evening 
and the ensuing Sunday boozing at a Spielhaus with 
his companions, perhaps bobbing for perch in a Dutch 
canal, and noting down, in a strain and with a grace not 
unworthy of his Epicurean master, the charms of his 
idleness, his retreat, and his Batavian Chloe. A vintner's 
son in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil of Busby of 
the Rod, Prior attracted some notice by writing verses 
at Saint John's College, Cambridge, and coming up to 
town aided Montague in an attack on the noble old 
English lion John Dryden, in ridicule of whose work, 
*' The Hind and the Panther," he brought out that 
remarkable and famous burlesque, " The Town and 
Country Mouse." Are not you all acquainted with it? 
Have you not all got it by heart? What! have you 
never heard of it ? See what fame is made of ! The 
wonderful part of the satire was, that, as a natural conse- 
quence of " The Town and Country Mouse," Matthew 

128 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 129 

Prior was made Secretary of Embassy at The Hague. 
I believe it is dancing rather than singing which dis- 
tinguishes the young English diplomatists of the present 
day, and have seen them in various parts perform that 
part of their duty very finely. In Prior's time it appears 
a different accomplishment led to preferment. Could 
you write a copy of Alcaics? That was the question. 
Could 3'Ou turn out a neat epigram or two? Could 
you compose "The Town and Country Mouse"? It 
is manifest that by the possession of this faculty the 
most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign nations, and 
the interests of our own are easily understood. Prior 
rose in the diplomatic service, and said good things 
that proved his sense and his spirit. When the apart- 
ments at Versailles were shown to him, wnth the victories 
of Louis XIV. painted on the walls, and Prior was 
asked whether the palace of the King of England had 
any such decorations, " The monuments of my master's 
actions," Mat said, of William, whom he cordially 
revered, " are to be seen everywhere except in his own 
house." Bravo, Mat ! Prior rose to be full ambassa- 
dor at Paris, where he somehow w^as cheated out of his 
ambassadorial plate ; and in a heroic poem, addressed 
by him to her late lamented Majesty, Queen Anne, 
Mat makes some magnificent allusions to these dishes 
and spoons, of which Fate had deprived him. All that 
he wants, he says, is her Majesty's picture; without 
that, he cannot be happy. 

"Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore: 
Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power 
Higher to raise the glories of thy reign, 
In words sublimer and a nobler strain 



130 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

May future bards the mighty theme rehearse. 
Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse. 
The votive tablet I suspend." 

With that word the poem stops abruptly. The votive 
tablet is suspended forever, like Mahomet's coffin. 
News came that the Queen was dead. Stator Jove, 
and Phcebus, king of verse, were left there, hovering to 
this day over the votive tablet. The picture was never 
got, any more than the spoons and dishes; the inspira- 
tion ceased, the verses were not wanted — the ambassa- 
dor was not wanted. Poor Mat was recalled from 
his embassy, suffered disgrace along with his patrons, 
lived under a sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared 
in Essex. When deprived of all his pensions and emolu- 
ments, the hearty and generous Oxford pensioned him. 
They played for gallant stakes, the bold men of those 
days, and lived and gave splendidly. 

Johnson quotes from Spence a legend that Prior, 
after spending an evening with Harley, Saint John, 
Pope, and Swift, would go off and smoke a pipe with 
a couple of friends of his, a soldier and his wife, in 
Long Acre. Those who have not read his late 
Excellency's poems should be warned that they smack 
not a little of the conversation of his Long Acre friends. 
Johnson speaks slightingly of his lyrics; but with due 
deference to the great Samuel, Prior's seem to me among 
the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous 
of English lyrical poems. Horace is always in his mind; 
and his song and his philosophy, his good sense, his 
happy easy turns and melody, his loves and his Epicu- 
reanism, bear a great resemblance to that most delight- 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 131 

ful and accomplished master. In reading his works 
one is struck with their modern air, as well as by their 
happy similarity to the songs of the charming owner 
of the Sabine farm. In his verses addressed to Halifax, 
he says, writing of that endless theme to poets, the 
vanity of human wishes, — 

" So whilst in fevered dreams we sink, 
And waking, taste what we desire, 
The real draught but feeds the fire. 
The dream is better than the drink. ^ 

" Our hopes like towering falcons aim 
At objects in an airy height; 
To stand aloof and view the flight 
Is all the pleasure of the game." 

Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days 
was singing; and in the verses of Chloe weeping and 
reproaching him for his inconstancy, where he says, — 

" The God of us versemen, you know, child, the Sun, 
How, after his journeys, he sets up his rest. 
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run, 
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast. 

'* So, when I am wearied with wandering all day, 
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come ; 
No matter what beauties I saw in my way, 
They were but my visits, but thou art my home ! 

" Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war, 
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree; 
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her, 
As he was a poet sublimer than me." 

If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore study 
Prior? Love and pleasure find singers in all days. 



132 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Roses are always blowing and fading, — to-day as in 
that pretty time when Prior sang of them, and of Chloe 
lamenting their decay : — 

" She sighed, she smiled, and to the flowers 
Pointing, the lovely moralist said: 
* See, friend, in some few fleeting hours, 
See yonder what a change is made ! 

" ' Ah me ! the blooming pride of May 

And that of Beauty are but one; 
At morn both flourish, bright and gay, 

Both fade at evening, pale and gone. 

" ' At dawn poor Stella danced and sung. 
The amorous youth around her bowed ; 
At night her fatal knell was rung: 
I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. 

*' ' Such as she is who died to-day. 
Such I, alas, may be to-morrow: 
Go, Damon, bid thy Muse display 
The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow.' " 

Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf lie 
lightly on him! " Deus sit propitius huic potatori," as 
Walter de Mapes sang. Perhaps Samuel Johnson, who 
spoke slightingly of Prior's verses, enjoyed them more 
than he was willing to own. The old moralist had 
studied them as well as Mr. Thomas Moore, and 
defended them and showed that he remembered them, 
very well too, on an occasion when their morality was 
called in question by that noted puritan, James Boswell, 
Esquire, of Auchinleck. 

In the great society of the wits, John Gay deserved 
to be a favorite, and to have a good place. In his set 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 133 

all were fond of him. His success offended nobody. 
He missed a fortune once or twice. He was talked of 
for Court favor, and hoped to win it; but the Court 
favor jilted him. Craggs gave him some South Sea 
stock, and at one time Gay had very nearly made his 
fortune; but Fortune shook her swift wings and jilted 
him too. And so his friends, instead of being angry w^ith 
him and jealous of him, were kind and fond of honest 
Gay. In the portraits of the literary worthies of the 
early part of the last century Gay's face is the pleasant- 
est perhaps of all. It appears adorned with neither 
periwig nor nightcap (the full dress and neglige of 
learning, without which the painters of those days 
scarcely ever portrayed wits), and he laughs at you over 
his shoulder with an honest boyish glee, an artless 
sweet humor. He was so kind, so gentle, so jocular, so 
delightfully brisk at times, so dismally woebegone at 
others, such a natural good creature, that the Giants 
loved him. The great Swift was gentle and sportive 
wnth him, as the enormous Brobdingnag maids of honor 
were with little Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle 
round Pope, and sport and bark and caper, without 
offending the most thin-skinned of poets and men ; and 
when he was jilted in that little Court affair of which 
we have spoken, his w^arm-hearted patrons the Duke and 
Duchess of Queensberry (the " Kitty, beautiful and 
young," of Prior) pleaded his cause with indignation, 
and quitted the Court in a huff, carrying off with them 
into their retirement their kind, gentle protege. With 
these kind, lordly folks, a real Duke and Duchess, as 
delightful as those who harbored Don Quixote and loved 



134 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

the dear old Sancho, Gay lived, and was lapped in 
cotton, and had his plate of chicken and his saucer 
of cream, and frisked and barked and wheezed and 
grew fat, and so ended. He became very melancholy 
and lazy, sadly plethoric, and only occasionally diverting 
in his latter dajs. But everybody loved him and the 
remembrance of his pretty little tricks; and the raging 
old Dean of Saint Patrick's, chafing in his banishment, 
w^as afraid to open the letter which Pope wrote him 
announcing the sad news of the death of Gay. 

Swift's letters to him are beautiful ; and having no 
purpose but kindness in writing to him, no party aim 
to advocate, or slight or anger to wreak, every word the 
Dean says to his favorite is natural, trustworthy, and 
kindly. His admiration for Gay's parts and honesty, 
and his laughter at his weaknesses were alike just and 
genuine. He paints his character in wonderful pleasant 
traits of jocular satire. " I writ lately to Mr. Pope," 
Swift says, writing to Gay. " I wish j^ou had a little 
villakin in his neighborhood ; but you are yet too volatile, 
and any lady with a coach and six horses would carry 
5-0U to Japan." " If your ramble," says Sw^ift, in another 
letter, " was on horseback, I am glad of it, on account 
of your health ; but I know your arts of patching up a 
journey between stage-coaches and friends' coaches, for 
you are as arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside. 
I have often had it in my head to put it into yours that 
you ought to have some great work in scheme, which 
may take up seven years to finish, besides two or three 
under-ones that may add another thousand pounds to 
your stock ; and then I shall be in less pain about 3-ou. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 135 

I know you can find dinners, but you love twelve-penny 
coaches too well, without considering that the interest of 
a whole thousand pounds brings you but half-a-crown a 
day." And then Swift goes off from Gay to pay some 
grand compliments to her Grace the Duchess of Queens- 
berry, in whose sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and in 
whose radiance the Dean would have liked to warm 
himself too. 

But we have Gay here before us, in these letters, — lazy, 
kindly, uncommonly idle ; rather slovenly, I am afraid ; 
forever eating and saying good things; a little, round, 
French abbe of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and soft- 
hearted. 

Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the 
men than their works ; or to deal with the latter only 
in as far as they seem to illustrate the character of their 
writers. Mr. Gay's " Fables," which w^ere written to 
benefit that amiable Prince, the Duke of Cumberland, the 
warrior of Dettingen and CuUoden, I have not, I own, 
been able to peruse since a period of very early youth ; 
and it must be confessed that they did not effect much 
benefit upon the illustrious young Prince whose manners 
they were intended to mollify, and whose natural ferocity 
our gentle-hearted satirist perhaps proposed to restrain. 
But the six pastorals called the " Shepherd's Week," and 
the burlesque poem of " Trivia," any man fond of lazy 
literature will find delightful at the present day, and 
must read from beginning to end with pleasure. They 
are to poetry what charming little Dresden china figures 
are to sculpture, — graceful, minikin, fantastic, with a 
certain beauty always accompanying them. The pretty 



136 ENGLISH HUMORI3T3 

little personages of the pastoral, with gold clocks to their 
stockings and fresh satin ribbons to their crooks and 
waistcoats and bodices, dance their loves to a minuet- 
tune played on a bird-organ, approach the charmer, or 
rush from the false one daintily on their red-heeled tiptoes, 
and die of despair or rapture, with the most pathetic 
little grins and ogles; or repose, simpering at each other, 
under an arbor of pea-green crockery, or piping to pretty 
flocks that have just been washed with the best Naples 
in a stream of Bergamot. Gay's gay plan seems to me far 
pleasanter than that of Philips (his rival and Pope's), a 
serious and dreary idyllic cockney: not that Gay's " Bum- 
kinets " and '* Hobnelias " are a whit more natural than 
the would-be serious characters of the other posture- 
master; but the quality of this true humorist was to laugh 
and make laugh, though alw^ays with a secret kindness 
and tenderness; to perform the drollest little antics and 
capers, but always w^ith a certain grace and to sweet 
music, — as you may have seen a Savoyard boy abroad, 
with a hurdy-gurdy and a monkey, turning over head 
and heels, or clattering and pirouetting in a pair of wooden 
shoes, yet always with a look of love and appeal in his 
bright eyes, and a smile that asks and w^ns affection and 
protection. Happy they who have that sweet gift of 
nature ! It w^as this which made the great folks and Court 
ladies free and friendly with John Gay; which made Pope 
and Arbuthnot love him ; which melted the savage heart 
of Swift W'hen he thought of him, and drove away for 
a moment or tw'O the dark frenzies which obscured the 
lonely tyrant's brain, as he heard Gay's voice w^ith its 
simple melody and artless, ringing laughter. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 137 

What used to be said about Rubini, " Qu'il avalt des 
larmes dans la voix," may be said of Gay, and of one other 
humorist of whom we shall have to speak. In almost 
every ballad of his, however slight, in the " Beggar's 
Opera " and in its wearisome continuation (where the 
verses are to the full as pretty as in the first piece, 
however), there is a peculiar, hinted, pathetic sweetness 
and melody. It charms and melts you. It is indefinable, 
but it exists, and is the property of John Gay's and Oliver 
Goldsmith's best verse, as fragrance is of a violet, or 
freshness of a rose. ■ 

Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which 
is so famous that most people here are no doubt familiar 
wn'th it, but so delightful that it is always pleasant to 
hear : — 

" I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic 
seat of my Lord Harcourt's which he lent me. It overlooks a 
common hayfield, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two 
lovers as constant as ever were found in romance, beneath a 
spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound as it will) 
was John Hewet; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set 
man, about five-and-twenty ; Sarah, a brown woman of eighteen. 
John had for several months borne the labor of the day in the 
same field with Sarah; when she milked, it w^as his morning and 
evening charge to bring the cows to her pail. Their love was 
the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighborhood, for all 
they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in mar- 
riage. It was but this very morning that he had obtained her 
parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were 
to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of 
their work, they were talking of their wedding-clothes; and John 
was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers to 
her complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. 
While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July) a 



138 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the 
laborers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, 
frightened and out of breath, sank on a haycock; and John (who 
never separated from her) sat by her side, having raked two or 
three heaps together, to secure her. Immediately there was heard 
so loud a crack as if heaven had burst asunder. The laborers, 
all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another ; those 
that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the 
place where they lay. They first saw a little smoke, and after, 
this faithful pair, — John, with one arm about his Sarah's neck, 
and the other held over her face as if to screen her from the 
lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and 
cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discoloring 
on their bodies, only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, 
and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next 
day in one grave." 

And the proof that this description is delightful and 
beautiful is that the great Mr. Pope admired it so much 
that he thought proper to steal it, and to send it off to 
a certain lady and wit, with whom he pretended to be 
in love in those days, — my Lord Duke of Kingston's 
daughter, and married to Mr. Wortley Montagu, then 
his Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople. 

We are now come to the greatest name on our list, — 
the highest among the poets, the highest among the 
English wits and humorists with whom we have to rank 
him. If the author of the " Dunciad " be not a humorist, 
if the poet of the " Rape of the Lock " be not a wit, who 
deserves to be called so? Besides that brilliant genius 
and immense fame, for both of which we should respect 
him, men of letters should admire him as being one of 
the greatest literary artists that England has seen. He 
polished, he refined, he thought; he took thoughts from 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 139 

other works to adorn and complete his own, — borrow- 
ing an idea or a cadence from another poet as he would 
a figure or a simile from a flower, or a river, stream, or 
an 3^ object which struck him in his walk or contempla- 
tion of Nature. He began to imitate at an earl}^ age, 
and taught himself to write by copying printed books. 
Then he passed into the hands of the priests; and from 
his first clerical master, w^ho came to him when he was 
eight years old, he went to a school at Twyford, and 
another school at Hyde Park, at w^hich places he unlearned 
all that he had got from his first instructor. At twelve 
years old, he went with his father into Windsor Forest, 
and there learned for a few months under a fourth priest. 
" And this was all the teaching I ever had," he said ; 
" and God knows it extended a very little way." 

When he had done with his priests he took to reading 
by himself, for which he had a very great eagerness and 
enthusiasm, especially for poetry. He learned versifica- 
tion from Dryden, he said. In his youthful poem of 
" Alcander," he imitated every poet, — Cowley, Milton, 
Spenser, Statius, Homer, Virgil. In a few years he had 
dipped into a great number of the English, French, 
Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. " This I did," he says, 
" without any design except to amuse myself, and got 
the languages by hunting after the stories in the several 
poets I read, rather than read the books to get the lan- 
guages. I followed everywhere as my fancy led me, and 
was like a boy gathering flowers in the fields and woods, 
just as they fell in his wa}^ These five or six years I 
looked upon as the happiest in my life," Is not here a 
beautiful holiday picture? The forest and the fairy 



140 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Story-book; the boy spelling Ariosto or Virgil under the 
trees, battling with the Cid for the love of Chimene, or 
dreaming of Armida's garden, — peace and sunshine 
round about, the kindest love and tenderness waiting 
for him at his quiet home yonder, and Genius throbbing 
in his young heart, and whispering to him, " You shall 
be great, you shall be famous; you too shall love and 
sing; you will sing her so nobly that some kind heart 
shall forget you are weak and ill formed. Every poet 
had a love. Fate must give one to you too ;" and day 
by day he walks the forest, very likely looking out for 
that charmer. " They were the happiest da3^s of his 
life," he says, when he was only dreaming of his fame; 
when he had gained that mistress she was no consoler. 
That charmer made her appearance, it w^ould seem, 
about the year 1705, when Pope \\'as seventeen. Let- 
ters of his are extant, addressed to a certain Lady M , 

whom the youth courted, and to whom he expressed his 
ardor in language, to say no worse of it, that is entirely 
pert, odious, and affected. He imitated love-composi- 
tions as he had been imitating love-poems just before; 
it was a sham mistress he courted, and a sham passion, 
expressed as became it. These unlucky letters found 
their way into print years afterwards, and were sold to 
the congenial Mr. Curll. If any of my hearers, as I 
hope they may, should take a fancy to look at Pope's 
correspondence, let them pass over that first part 
of it, — over, perhaps, almost all Pope's letters to w^omen, 
in which there is a tone of not pleasant gallantry, and 
amidst a profusion of compliments and politenesses a 
something which makes one distrust the little pert, 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 141 

prurient bard. There is very little indeed to say about 
his loves, and that little not edifying. He wrote flames 
and raptures and elaborate verse and prose for Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu ; but that passion probably 

5 came* to a climax in an impertinence, and was extin- 
guished by a box on the ear, or some such rebuff, and 
he began on a sudden to hate her with a fervor much 
more genuine than that of his love had been. It was 
a feeble, puny grimace of love, and paltering with pas- 

I.) sion. After Mr. Pope had sent off one of his fine 
compositions to Lady Mary, he made a second draft 
from the rough copy, and favored some other friend 
with it. He was so charmed with the letter of Gay's 
that I have just quoted, that he had copied that and 

13 amended it, and sent it to Lady Mary as his own. A 
gentleman w^ho writes letters a deux fins, and, after having 
poured out his heart to the beloved, serves up the same 
dish 7-echauffe to a friend, is not very much in earnest 
about his loves, however much he may be in his piques 

10 and vanities when his impertinence gets its due. 

But, save that unlucky part of the " Pope Corre- 
spondence," I do not know in the range of our literature 
volumes more delightful. You live in them in the finest 
company in the world. A little stately, perhaps; a little 

13 apprete, and conscious that they are speaking to whole 
generations who are listening; but in the tone of their 
voices, — pitched, as no doubt they are, beyond the 
mere conversation key, — in the expression of their 
thoughts, their various views and natures, there is some- 

thing generous and cheering and ennobling. You are 
in the society of men who have filled the greatest parts 



142 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

in the world's story: you are with St. John the statesman; 
Peterborough the conqueror; Swift, the greatest wit of 
all times; Gay, the kindliest laughter. It is a privilege 
to sit in that company. Delightful and generous banquet ! 
with a little faith and a little fancy any one of us here 
may enjoy it, and conjure up those great figures out of 
the past, and listen to their wnt and wisdom. Mind that 
there is always a certain cachet about great men; they 
may be as mean on many points as you or I, but they 
carry their great air; they speak of common life more 
largely and generously than common men do ; they regard 
the world wnth a manlier countenance, and see its real 
features more fairly than the timid shufflers who only 
dare to look up at life through blinkers, or to have an 
opinion when there is a crowed to back it. He who reads 
these noble records of a past age salutes and reverences 
the great spirits who adorn it. You may go home now 
and talk with St. John; you may take a volume from 
your library, and listen to Swift and Pope. 

Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would 
say to him. Try to frequent the company of your bet- 
ters, — in books and life that is the most wholesome 
society; learn to admire rightly, — the great pleasure 
of life is that; note what the great men admired, — 
they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely 
and worship meanly. I know nothing in any story more 
gallant and cheering than the love and friendship which 
this company of famous men bore towards one another. 
There never has been a society of men more friendly, 
as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares 
quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 143 

liking the society of men great and famous; and for 
liking them for the qualities which 'made them so? A 
mere pretty fellow from White's could not have writ- 
ten the " Patriot King," and would very likely have 
despised little Mr. Pope, the decrepit Papist, whom the 
great St. John held to be one of the best and greatest 
of men; a mere nobleman of the Court could no more 
have won Barcelona than he could have written Peter- 
borough's letters to Pope, which are as witty as Congreve ; 
a mere Irish Dean could not have written " Gulliver." 
And all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all 
these men. To name his friends is to name the best men 
of his time. Addison had a senate; Pope reverenced 
his equals. He spoke of Swift with respect and admira- 
tion always. His admiration for Bolingbroke was so 
great, that when some one said of his friend, " There 
is something in that great man which looks as if he 
was placed here by mistake," — " Yes," Pope answered, 
" and when the comet appeared to us a month or two 
ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it might pos- 
sibly be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to 
one's door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of 
one another. Show me six of the dullest middle-aged 
gentlemen that ever dawdled round a club-table so faithful 
and so friendly. 

We have said before that the chief wits of this 
time, with the exception of Congreve, were what we 
should now call men's men. They spent many hours 
of the four-and-twenty, a fourth part of each day nearly, 
in clubs and coffee-houses, where they dined, drank, and 
smoked. Wit and news went by word of mouth ; a 



144 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

journal of 1710 contained the very smallest portion of 
one or the other. The chiefs spoke, the faithful habitues 
sat round, strangers came to wonder and listen. Old 
Dryden had his headquarters at Will's, in Russell Street, 
at the corner of Bow Street, at which place Pope saw 
him when he was twelve years old. The company used 
to assemble on the first floor (what w^as called the dining- 
room floor in those days) and sat at various tables 
smoking their pipes. It is recorded that the beaux of the 
day thought it a great honor to be allowed to take a 
pinch out of Drj^den's snuff-box. When Addison began 
to reign, he with a certain crafty propriety — or policy 
let us call it — which belonged to his nature set up 
his court, and appointed the officers of his royal house. 
His palace was Button's, opposite Will's. A quiet opposi- 
tion, a silent assertion of empire, distinguished this great 
man. Addison's ministers were Budgell, Tickell, Philips, 
Carey; his master of the horse, honest Dick Steele, who 
was what Duroc was to Napoleon, or Hardy to Nelson, — 
the man who performed his master's bidding, and would 
have cheerfully died in his quarrel. Addison lived wn'th 
these people for seven or eight hours every day. The male 
society passed over their punch-bowls and tobacco-pipes 
about as much time as ladies of that age spent over spadille 
and manille. 

For a brief space, upon coming up to towm. Pope 
formed part of King Joseph's court, and was his rather 
too eager and obsequious humble servant. Dick Steele, 
tlie editor of the " Tatler," Mr. Addison's man, and 
his own man too, — a person of no little figure in the 
world of letters, — patronized the young poet, and set 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 145 

him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope did the tasks very 
quickly and smartly (he had been at the feet, quite as 
a boy, of Wycherley's decrepit reputation, and propped 
up for a year that doting old wit). He was anxious to 
be well with the men of letters, to get a footing and a 
recognition ; he thought it an honor to be admitted into 
their company, to have the confidence of Mr. Addison's 
friend, Captain Steele. His eminent parts obtained for 
him the honor of heralding Addison's triumph of " Cato " 
with his admirable prologue, and heading the victorious 
procession as it were. Not content with this act of 
homage and admiration, he wanted to distinguish himself 
by assaulting Addison's enemies, and attacked John 
Dennis with a prose lampoon, which highly offended his 
lofty patron. Mr. Steele was instructed to WTite to Mr. 
Dennis, and inform him that Mr. Pope's pamphlet 
against him was written quite without Mr. Addison's 
approval. Indeed, " The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris 
on the Phrenzy of J. D." is a vulgar and mean satire, 
and such a blow as the magnificent Addison could never 
desire to see any partisan of his strike in any literary 
quarrel. Pope was closely allied with Swift when he 
wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty that it has been 
printed in Swift's works, too ; it bears the foul marks of 
the master hand. Swift admired and enjoyed with all 
his heart the prodigious genius of the young Papist lad 
out of Windsor Forest, who had never seen a university 
in his life, and came and conquered the dons and the 
doctors with his wit. He applauded and loved him, too, 
and protected him, and taught him mischief. I wish 
Addison could have loved him better. The best satire 



146 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

that ever has been penned would never have been written 
then; and one of the best characters the world ever knew 
would have been without a flaw. But he who had so few 
equals could not bear one; and Pope was more than that. 

.-, When Pope, trying for himself, and soaring on his 
immortal young wings, found that his, too, was a genius 
v,'hich no pinion of that age could follow, he rose and left 
Addison's company, settling on his own eminence, and 
singing his own song. 

10 It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer 
of Mr. Addison, nor likely that after escaping from his 
vassalage and assuming an independent crown, the 
sovereign whose allegiance he quitted should view him 
amicably. They did not do wrong to mislike each 

15 other; they but followed the impulse of nature, and the 
consequence of position. When Bernadotte became 
heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of Sweden was nat- 
urally Napoleon's enemy. " There are many passions 
and tempers of mankind," says Mr. Addison in the 

20 " Spectator," speaking a couple of years before the little 
differences between him and Mr. Pope took place, 
*' which naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the 
merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind. All those 
who made their entrance into the world with the same 

25 advantages, and were once looked on as his equals, are 
apt to think the fame of his merits a reflection on their 
own deserts. Those who were once his equals envy 
and defame him because they now see him the superior; 
and those who were once his superiors, because they 

;!o look upon him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, justly 
perhaps thinking that as young Mr. Pope had not had 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 147 

the benefit of a university education he could not know 
Greek, therefore he could not translate Homer, encourage 
his young friend Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, to translate 
that poet, and aid him with his own known scholarship 
and skill? It was natural that Mr. Addison should 
doubt of the learning of an amateur Grecian, should have 
a high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, and should 
help that ingenious young man. It was natural, on the 
other hand, that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's friends 
should believe that this counter-translation, suddenly 
advertised and so long written, though Tickell's college 
friends had never heard of it; though, when Pope first 
wrote to Addison regarding his scheme Mr. Addison 
knew nothing of the similar project of Tickell, of 
Queen's, — it was natural that Mr. Pope and his friends, 
having interests, passions, and prejudices of their own, 
should believe that Tickell's translation was but an act 
of opposition against Pope, and that they should call 
Mr. Tickell's emulation Mr. Addison's envy, if envy 
it were. 

" And were there one whose fires 
True genius kindles and fair fame inspires, 
Blest with each talent and each art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease: 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne ; 
View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; 



148 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Alike reserved to blame as to commend, 
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; 
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, 
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged ; 
Like Cato give his little senate laws, 
And sit attentive* to his own applause; 
While wits and templars every sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise: 
Who but must laugh if such a man there be? 
Who would not weep if Atticus were he ? " 

" I sent the verses to Mr. Addison," said Pope, *' and 
he used me very civilly ever after." No wonder he did. 
It was shame very likely more than fear that silenced 
him. Johnson recounts an interview between Pope and 
Addison after their quarrel, in which Pope w^as angry, 
and Addison tried to be contemptuous and calm. Such 
a weapon as Pope's must have pierced any scorn ; it 
flashes forever, and quivers in Addison's memory. His 
great figure looks out on us from the past, stainless but 
for that, pale, calm, and beautiful ; it bleeds from that 
black wound. He should be drawn, like Saint Sebastian, 
with that arrow in his side. As he sent to Gay and asked 
his pardon, as he bade his stepson come and see his 
death, be sure he had forgiven Pope when he made ready 
to show^ how a Christian could die. 

Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for a 
short, time, and describes himself in his letters as sitting 
with that coterie until two o'clock in the morning over 
punch and burgundy, amidst the fumes of tobacco. To 
use an expression of the present day, the " pace " of 
those viveurs of the former age was awful. Peterborough 
lived into the very jaws of death; Godolphin labored all 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 149 

da)^ and gambled at night. Bolingbroke, wrilinp; to 
Swift from Dawley, in his retirement, dating his letter 
at six o'clock in the morning, and rising as he says 
refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time of his 
London life, when about that hour he used to be going to 
bed surfeited with pleasure and jaded w^ith business, his 
head often full of schemes and his heart as often full of 
anxiety. It was too hard, too coarse a life for the sensitive, 
sickly Pope. He was the only wit of the day, a friend 
writes to me, who was not fat. Swift w^as fat; Addison 
was fat; Steele was fat; Gay and Thomison were pre- 
posterously fat. All that fuddling and punch-drinking, 
that club and coffee-house boozing, shortened the lives 
and enlarged the w^aistcoats of the men of that age. Pope 
withdrew in a great measure from this boisterous London 
company, and being put into an independence by the 
gallant exertions of Swift and his private friends, and 
by the enthusiastic national admiration which justly 
rewarded his great achievement of the Iliad, purchased 
that famous villa of Twickenham which his song and 
life celebrated, duteously bringing his old parents to 
live and die there, entertaining his friends there, and 
making occasional visits to London in his little chariot, 
in which Atterbury compared him to " Homer in a 
nutshell." 

" Mr. Dry den was not a genteel man," Pope quaintly 
said to Spence, speaking of the manners and habits of 
the famous old patriarch of Will's. With regard to 
Pope's own manners, we have the best contemporary 
authority that they were singularly refined and polished. 
With his extraordinarv sensibilitv, with his known tastes. 



150 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

with his delicate frame, with his power and dread of 
ridicule, Pope could have been no other than what we 
call a highlj^-bred person. His closest friends, with the 
exception of Swift, were among the delights and orna- 
ments of the polished society of their age. Garth, the 
accomplished and benevolent, whom Steele has described 
so charmingly, of whom Codrington said that his character 
was " all beauty," and whom Pope himself called the best 
of Christians without knowing it; Arbuthnot, one of the 
wisest, wittiest, most accomplished, gentlest of mankind ; 
Bolingbroke, the Alcibiades of his age ; the generous 
Oxford ; the magnificent, the witty, the famous, and 
chivalrous Peterborough, — these were the fast and faith- 
ful friends of Pope, the most brilliant company of friends, 
let us repeat, that the world has ever seen. The favorite 
recreation of his leisure hours was the society of painters, 
whose art he practised. In his correspondence are letters 
between him and Jervas, whose pupil he loved to be; 
Richardson, a celebrated artist of his time, and who painted 
for him a portrait of his old mother, for w^hose picture he 
asked and thanked Richardson in one of the most delight- 
ful letters that ever was penned ; and the wonderful 
Knelier, who bragged more, spelt worse, and painted better 
than any artist of his day. 

It is affecting to note, through Pope's correspondence, 
the marked way in which his friends — the greatest, the 
most famous, and wittiest men of the time; generals and 
statesmen, philosophers and divines — all have a kind word 
and a kind thought for the good, simple old mother, whom 
Pope tended so affectionately. Those men would have 
scarcely valued her but that they knew how much he 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 151 

loved her, and that they pleased him by thinking of her. 
If his early letters to women are affected and insincere, 
whenever he speaks about this one it is with a childish ten- 
derness and an almost sacred simplicity. In 1713, when 
young Mr. Pope had by a series of the most astonishing 
victories and dazzling achievements seized the crown of 
poetry, and the town was in an uproar of admiration or 
hostility for the young chief; when Pope was issuing his 
famous decrees for the translation of the Iliad ; when Den- 
nis and the lower critics were hooting and assailing him ; 
when Addison and the gentlemen of his court were sneer- 
ing with sickening hearts at the prodigious triumphs of the 
young conqueror, — when Pope, in a fever of victory and 
genius, and hope and anger, was struggling through the 
crowd of shouting friends and furious detractors to his 
temple of Fame, his old mother writes from the country, 
" My deare," says she, ** my deare, there's Mr. Blount, of 
Maple Durom, dead the same day that Mr. Inglefield 
died. Your sister is well, but 3^our brother is sick. My 
service to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. I hope to 
hear from you, and that jou are well, which is my daily 
prayer, — and this with my blessing." The triumph 
marches by, and the car of the young conqueror, the hero 
of a hundred brilliant victories ; the fond mother sits in the 
quiet cottage at home and says, " I send you my daily 
prayers, and I bless you, my deare." 

In our estimate of Pope's character, let us always take 
into account that constant tenderness and fidelity of affec- 
tion which pervaded and sanctified his life, and never for- 
get that maternal benediction. It accompanied him always ; 
his life seems purified by those artless and heartfelt prayers. 



152 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

And he seems to have received and deserved the fond 
attachment of the other members of his family. It is not a 
little touching to read in Spence of the enthusiastic admira- 
tion with which his half-sister regarded him, and the sim- 
ple anecdote by which she illustrates her love. " I think 
no man was ever so little fond of money," Mrs. Rackett 
saj'S about her brother, " I think my brother when he was 
young read more books than any man in the world ; " and 
she falls to telling stories of his school-days, and of the 
manner in which his master at Twyford ill-used him. " I 
don't think my brother knew what fear was," she con- 
tinues ; and the accounts of Pope's friends bear out this 
character for courage. When he had exasperated the 
dunces, and threats of violence and personal assault were 
brought to him, the dauntless little champion never for 
one instant allowed fear to disturb him, or condescended 
to take any guard in his daily walks except occasionally 
his faithful dog to bear him company. " I had rather die 
at once," said the gallant little cripple, " than live in fear 
of those rascals." 

As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot asked 
and enjoyed for himself, — a euthanasia, a beautiful end. 
A perfect benevolence, affection, serenity, hallowed the 
departure of that high soul. Even in the very hallucina- 
tions of his brain and weaknesses of his delirium there was 
something almost sacred. Spence describes him in his last 
days, looking up and w^ith a rapt gaze as if something had 
suddenly passed before him. " He said to me, * What's 
that? ' pointing into the air with a very steady regard, 
and then looked down and said, with a smile of the great- 
est softness, ' 'Twas a vision ! ' " He laughed scarcely 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 153 

ever, but his companions describe his countenance as often 
illuminated by a peculiar sweet smile. 

" When," said Spence, the kind anecdotist whom John- 
son despised, — " when I was telling Lord Bolingbroke 
that Mr. Pope, on every catching and recovery of his 
mind, was always saying something kindly of his pres- 
ent or absent friends ; and that this was so surprising, 
as it seemed to me as if humanity had outlasted under- 
standing, — Lord Bolingbroke said, ' It has so; ' and then 
added, ' I never in my life knew a man who had so ten- 
der a heart for his particular friends, or a more general 
friendship for mankind. I have known him these thirty 
years, and value myself more for that man's love than — ' 
Here," Spence says, " St. John sank his head, and lost 
his voice in tears." The sob which finishes the epitaph 
is finer than words. It is the cloak thrown over the 
father's face in the famous Greek picture, which hides the 
grief and heightens it. 

In Johnson's " Life of Pope " 3^ou will find described, 
with rather a malicious minuteness, some of the personal 
habits and infirmities of the great little Pope. His body 
was crooked ; he w^as so short that it was necessary to raise 
his chair in order to place him on a level with other peo- 
ple at table. He was sewed up in a buckram suit every 
morning, and required a nurse like a child. His contem- 
poraries reviled these misfortunes with a strange acri- 
mony, and made his poor deformed person the butt for 
many a bolt of heavy wit. The facetious Mr. Dennis, in 
speaking of him, says, " If you take the first letter of Mr. 
Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and last 
letters of his surname, you have A p e." Pope catalogues, 



154 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

at the end of the '' Dunciad," with a rueful precision, 
other pretty names, besides Ape, which Dennis called him. 
That great critic pronounced Mr. Pope a little ass, a 
fool, a coward, a Papist, and therefore a hater of Scripture, 
and so forth. It must be remembered that the pillory 
was a flourishing and popular institution in those days. 
Authors stood in it in the body sometimes, and dragged 
their enemies thither morally; hooted them with foul 
abuse, and assailed them with garbage of the gutter. Poor 
Pope's figure was an easy one for those clumsy caricatu- 
rists to draw. Any stupid hand could draw a hunchback and 
write " Pope " underneath. They did. A libel v/as pub- 
lished against Pope, with such a frontispiece. This kind 
of rude jesting was an evidence not only of an ill nature, 
but a dull one. When a child makes a pun, or a lout 
breaks out into a laugh, it is some very obvious combina- 
tion of words or discrepancy of objects which provokes the 
infantine satirist, or tickles the boorish wag; and many of 
Pope's revilers laughed not so much because they were 
wicked, as because they knew no better. 

Without the utmost sensibility, Pope could not have 
been the poet he was ; and through his life, however much 
he protested that he disregarded their abuse, the coarse 
ridicule of his opponents stung and tore him. One of 
Gibber's pamphlets coming into Pope's hands w^hilst Rich- 
ardson the painter was with him, Pope turned round and 
said, " These things are my diversions; " and Richardson, 
sitting by whilst Pope perused the libel, said he saw his 
features " writhing w^ith anguish." How^ little human 
nature changes! Cannot one see that little figure? Can- 
not one fancy one is reading Horace? Cannot one fancy 
one is speaking of to-day? 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 155 

The tastes and sensibilities of Pope, which led him to 
cultivate the society of persons of fine manners or wit or 
taste or beauty, caused him to shrink equally from that 
shabby and boisterous crew which formed the rank and 
file of literature in his time; and he w^as as unjust to these 
men as they to him. The delicate little creature sickened 
at habits and company which were quite tolerable to 
robuster men ; and in the famous feud between Pope and 
the Dunces, and without attributing any peculiar wrong 
to either, one can quite understand how the two parties 
should so hate each other. As I fancy, it was a sort of 
necessity that when Pope's triumph passed, Mr. Addison 
and his men should look rather contemptuously down on 
it from their balcony; so it was natural for Dennis and 
Tibbald, and Welsted and Gibber, and the worn and 
hungry pressmen in the crowd below, to howl at him and 
assail him. And Pope was more savage to Grub Street 
than Grub Street was to Pope. The thong with which 
he lashed them was dreadful ; he fired upon that howling 
crew such shafts of flame and poison, he slew and wounded 
so fiercely, that in reading the " Dunciad " and the prose 
lampoons of Pope one feels disposed to side against the 
ruthless little tyrant, at least to pity those wretched folks 
on whom he was so unmerciful. It was Pope, and Swift 
to aid him, who established among us the Grub Street 
tradition. He revels in base descriptions of poor men's 
want; he gloats over poor Dennis's garret and flannel 
nightcap and red stockings; he gives instructions how to 
find Curll's authors, — the historian at the tallow-chan- 
dler's under the blind arch in Petty France; the two trans- 
lators in bed together ; the poet in the cock-loft in Budge 



156 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Row, whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was Pope, I 
fear, who contributed more than any man who ever lived 
to depreciate the literary calling. It was not an unpros- 
perous one before that time, as we have seen ; at least there 
were great prizes in the profession which had made Addi- 
son a Minister, and Prior an Ambassador, and Steele a 
Commissioner, and Swift all but a Bishop. The profession 
of letters was ruined by that libel of the ** Dunciad." If 
authors were wretched and poor before, if some of them 
lived in haylofts of which their landladies kept the ladders 
at least nobody came to disturb them in their straw; if 
three of them had but one coat between them, the two 
remained invisible in the garret, the third at any rate 
appeared decently at the coffee-house and paid his twopence 
like a gentleman. It was Pope that dragged into light 
all this poverty and meanness, and held up those wretched 
shifts and rags to public ridicule. It was Pope that has 
made generations of the reading world (delighted with the 
mischief, as who would not be that reads it?) believe that 
author and wretch, author and rags, author and dirt, author 
and drink, gin, cowheel, tripe, poverty, duns, bailiffs, squall- 
ing children, and clamorous landladies, were always asso- 
ciated together. The condition of authorship began to fall 
from the dajs of the " Dunciad ; " and I believe in my 
heart that much of that obloquy which has since pursued 
our calling was occasioned by Pope's libels and wicked wit. 
Everybody read those ; everybody was familiarized with the 
idea of the poor-devil author. The manner is so capti- 
vating that young authors practise it, and begin their career 
with satire. It is so easy to write, and so pleasant to read ; 
to fire a shot that makes a giant wince, perhaps, and fancy 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 157 

one's self his conqueror! It is easy to shoot, but not as 
Pope did. The shafts of his satire rise sublimely; no 
poet's verse ever mounted higher than that wonderful 
flight with which the " Dunciad " concludes: — 

" She comes, she comes ! the sable throne behold 
Of Night primeval and of Chaos old ; 
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, 
And all its varying rainbows die away; 
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, — 
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires, 
As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, 
The sick'ning stars fade off the ethereal plain; 
As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppressed, 
Closed, one by one, to everlasting rest, — 
Thus, at her fell approach and secret might. 
Art after Art goes out, and all is night. 
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled. 
Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head ; 
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before. 
Shrinks to her second cause and is no more. 
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires. 
And, unawares. Morality expires. 
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine. 
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine. 
Lo ! thy dread empire. Chaos, is restored, 
Light dies before thy uncreating word ; 
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall. 
And universal darkness buries all." 

In these astonishing lines Pope reaches, I think, to the 
very greatest height which his sublime art has attained, 
and shows himself the equal of all poets of all times. It 
is the brightest ardor, the loftiest assertion of truth, the 
most generous wisdom illustrated by the noblest poetic 
figure, and spoken in words the aptest, grandest, and most 



158 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

harmonious. It is heroic courage speaking, a splendid dec- 
laration of righteous wrath and war. It is the gage flung 
down, and the silver trumpet ringing defiance to falsehood 
and tyranny, deceit, dulness, superstition. It is Truth, 
the champion, shining and intrepid, and fronting the great 
world-tyrant with armies of slaves at his back. It is a won- 
derful and victorious single combat, in that great battle 
w^hich has always been waging since society began. 

In speaking of a work of consummate art one does not 
try to show what it actually is, for that were vain; but 
what it is like, and what are the sensations produced in 
the mind of him who views it. And in considering Pope's 
admirable career, I am forced into similitudes drawn from 
other courage and greatness, and into comparing him with 
those who achieved triumphs in actual war. I think of 
the works of young Pope as I do of the actions of young 
Bonaparte or young Nelson. In their common life you 
will find frailties and meannesses as great as the vices and 
follies of the meanest men ; but in the presence of the great 
occasion the great soul flashes out, and conquers transcend- 
ent. In thinking of the splendor of Pope's young victories, 
of his merit, unequalled as his renown, I hail and salute 
the achieving genius, and do homage to the pen of a hero. 



LECTURE THE FIFTH 

HOGARTH, SxMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 

I suppose, as long as novels last and authors aim at inter- 
esting their public, there must always be in the story a 
virtuous and gallant hero, a wricked monster his opposite, 
and a pretty girl who finds a champion ; bravery and virtue 
conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph through 
a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the 
last volume, when justice overtakes him and honest folks 
come by their own. There never was perhaps a greatly 
popular story but this simple plot was carried through it. 
Mere satiric wit is addressed to a class of readers and 
thinkers quite different to those simple souls who laugh 
and weep over the novel. I fancy very few ladies indeed, 
for instance, could be brought to like " Gulliver " heartily, 
and (putting the coarseness and difference of manners out 
of the question) to relish the wonderful satire of '* Jonathan 
Wild." In that strange apologue, the author takes for a 
hero the greatest rascal, coward, traitor, tyrant, hypocrite 
that his wit and experience, both large in this matter, could 
enable him to devise or depict ; he accompanies this villain 
through all the actions of his life with a grinning defer- 
ence and a wonderful mock respect, and does not leave 
him till he is dangling at the gallow^s, — when the satirist 
makes him a low bow, and wishes the scoundrel good-day. 

It was not by satire of this sort, or by scorn and contempt, 
that Hogarth achieved his vast popularity and acquired 

159 



160 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

his reputation. His art is quite simple; he speaks popular 
parables to interest simple hearts, and to inspire them with 
pleasure or pity, or warning and terror. Not one of his 
tales but is as easy as " Goody Two Shoes;" it is the moral 
of Tommy was a naughty boy and the master flogged him, 
and Jacky was a good boy and had plum-cake, which per- 
vades the whole works of the homely and famous English 
moralist. And if the moral is written in rather too large 
letters after the fable, we must remember how simple the 
scholars and schoolmaster both were, and like neither the 
less because they are so artless and honest. , " It was a 
maxim of Dr. Harrison's," Fielding says in " Amelia," — 
speaking of the benevolent divine and philosopher who rep- 
resents the good principle in that novel, — " that no man 
can descend below himself in doing any act which may con- 
tribute to protect an innocent person, or to bring a rogue 
to the gallows." The moralists of that age had no com- 
punction, )^ou see ; they had not begun to be sceptical about 
the theory of punishment, and thought that the hanging 
of a thief was a spectacle for edification. Masters sent 
their apprentices, fathers took their children, to see Jack 
Sheppard or Jonathan Wild hanged, and it was as undoubt- 
ing subscribers to this moral law that Fielding wrote and 
Hogarth painted. Except in one instance, where in the 
mad-house scene in the " Rake's Progress " the girl whom 
he has ruined is represented as still tending and weeping 
over him in his insanity, a glimpse of pity for his rogues 
never seems to enter honest Hogarth's mind. There's not 
the slightest doubt in the breast of the jolly Draco. 

The famous set of pictures called " Marriage a la 
Mode," and which are now exhibited in the National Gal- 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 161 

lery in London, contains the most important and highly 
wrought of the Hogarth comedies. The care and method 
with which the moral grounds of these pictures are laid is 
as remarkable as the wit and skill of the observing and dex- 
terous artist. He has to describe the negotiations for a 
m.arriage pending between the daughter of a rich citizen 
Alderman and young Lord Viscount Squanderfield, the 
dissipated son of a gouty old Earl. Pride and pomposity 
appear in every accessory surrounding the Earl. He sits 
in gold lace and velvet, — as how should such an Earl 
w^ear anything but velvet and gold lace? His coronet is 
everywhere, — on his footstool, on which reposes one gouty 
toe turned out ; on the sconces and looking-glasses, on the 
dogs, on his lordship's very crutches; on his great chair of 
state and the great baldaquin behind him, under which he 
sits pointing majestically to his pedigree, which shows that 
his race is sprung from the loins of William the Con- 
queror, and confronting the old Alderman from the City, 
who has mounted his sword for the occasion, and wears 
his Alderman's chain, and has brought a bag full of money, 
mortgage-deeds, and thousand-pound notes for the arrange- 
ment of the transaction pending between them. Whilst 
the steward (a Methodist, therefore a hypocrite and cheat, 
for Hogarth scorned a Papist and a Dissenter) is nego- 
tiating between the old couple, their children sit together, 
united but apart. My Lord is admiring his countenance 
in the glass, while his bride is twiddling her marriage ring 
on her pocket-handkerchief, and listening with rueful coun- 
tenance to Counsellor Silvertongue, who has been drawing 
the settlements. The girl is pretty; but the painter, with 
a curious watchfulness, has taken care to give her a like- 



162 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

ness to her father as in the young Viscount's face you see 
a resemblance to the Earl, his noble sire. The sense of the 
coronet pervades the picture, as it is supposed to do the 
mind of its wearer. The pictures round the room are sly 
hints indicating the situation of the parties about to marry. 
A martyr is led to the fire ; Andromeda is offered to sacri- 
fice; Judith is going to slay Holofernes. There is the 
ancestor of the house (in the picture it is the Earl himself 
as a young man), with a' comet over his head, indicating 
that the career of the family is to be brilliant and brief. 
In the second picture the old Lord must be dead, for 
Madam has now the Countess's coronet over her bed and 
toilet-glass, and sits listening to that dangerous Counsellor 
Silvertongue, whose portrait now actually hangs up in her 
room, whilst the counsellor takes his ease on the sofa by 
her side, evidently the familiar of the house and the con- 
fidant of the mistress. My Lord takes his pleasure else- 
where than at home, whither he returns jaded and tipsy 
from the Rose, to find his wife yawning in her drawing- 
room, her whist-party over, and the da3dight streaming in ; 
or he amuses himself with the very w^orst company abroad, 
w^hilst his wife sits at home listening to foreign singers, 
or wastes her money at auctions, or, worse still, seeks 
amusement at masquerades. The dismal end is known. 
My Lord draws upon the counsellor, w^ho kills him, and 
is apprehended whilst endeavoring to escape. My Lady 
goes back perforce to the Alderman in the City, and faints 
upon reading Counsellor Silvertongue's dying speech at 
Tyburn, where the counsellor has been executed for send- 
ing his Lordship out of the world. Moral: Don't listen 
to evil, silvertongued counsellors; don't marry a man for 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 163 

his rank, or a woman for her money; don't frequent foolish 
auctions and masquerade balls unknown to your husband ; 
don't have wicked companions abroad and neglect your 
wife, otherwise you will be run through the body, and ruin 
will ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn. The people are all 
naughty, and Bogey carries them all off. In the " Rake's 
Progress," a loose life is ended by a similar sad catastrophe. 
It is the spendthrift coming into possession of the wealth of 
the paternal" miser ; the prodigal surrounded by flatterers, 
and wasting his substance on the very worst company, — the 
bailifiFs, the gambling-house, and Bedlam for an end. In 
the famous story of " Industry and Idleness," the moral 
is pointed in a manner similarly clear. Fair-haired Frank 
Goodchild smiles at his work, whilst naughty Tom Idle 
snores over his loom. Frank reads the edifying ballads of 
" Whittington " and the " London 'Prentice," whilst that 
reprobate Tom Idle prefers " Moll Flanders," and drinks 
hugely of beer. Frank goes to church of a Sunday, and 
warbles hymns from the gallery; while Tom lies on a 
tombstone outside playing at " halfpenny-under-the-hat " 
with street blackguards, and is deservedly caned by the 
beadle. Frank is made overseer of the business, whilst 
Tom is sent to sea. Frank is taken into partnership and 
marries his master's daughter, sends out broken victuals 
to the poor, and listens in his nightcap and gown, with the 
lovely Mrs. Goodchild by his side, to the nuptial music of 
the City bands and the marrow-bones and cleavers ; while 
idle Tom, returned from sea, shudders in a garret lest the 
officers are coming to take him for picking pockets. The 
Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esquire, becomes Sheriff 
of London, and partakes of the most splendid dinners which 



164 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

money can purchase or Alderman devour ; whilst poor Tom 
is taken up in a night-cellar, with that one-eyed and dis- 
reputable accomplice who first taught him to play chuck- 
farthing on a Sunday. What happens next? Tom is 
brought up before the justice of his country, in the person 
of Mr. Alderman Goodchild, who weeps as he recognizes 
his old brother 'prentice, as Tom's one-eyed friend peaches 
on him, and the clerk makes out the poor rogue's ticket 
for Newgate. Then the end comes. Tom goes to Tj^burn 
in a cart wnth a coffin in it; whilst the Right Honorable 
Francis Goodchild, Lord Mayor of London, proceeds to 
his Mansion House, in his gilt coach, with four footmen 
and a sword-bearer, whilst the Companies of London march 
in the august procession, whilst the trainbands of the City 
fire their pieces and get drunk in his honor, and — oh 
crowning delight and glory of all! — whilst his Majesty 
the King looks out from his royal balcony, with his 
ribbon on his breast, and his Queen and his star by his 
side, at the corner house of Saint Paul's Churchyard, 
where the toy-shop is now\ 

How the times have changed! The new Post Office 
now not disadvantageously occupies that spot where the 
scaffolding is in the picture, where the tipsy trainband- 
man is lurching against the post, with his wig over one 
eye, and the 'prentice-boy is trying to kiss the pretty girl 
in the gallery. Passed away 'prentice-boy and pretty girl ! 
Passed away tipsy trainband-man with wng and bandolier ! 
On the spot where Tom Idle (for w^hom I have an unaf- 
fected pity) made his exit from this wicked world, and 
where you see the hangman smoking his pipe as he reclines 
on the gibbet and views the hills of Harrow or Hampstead 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDLNG 165 

beyond, a splendid marble arch, a vast and modern city, 
clean, airy, painted drab, populous with nursery-maids and 
children, the abode of wealth and comfort, — the elegant, 
the prosperous, the polite Tyburnia rises, the most respec- 
table district in the habitable globe. 

In that last plate of the London Apprentices, in which 
the apotheosis of the Right Honorable Francis Goodchild is 
drawn, a ragged fellow is represented in the corner of the 
simple, kindly piece, offering for sale a broadside purport- 
ing to contain an account of the appearance of the ghost of 
Tom Idle executed at Tyburn. Could Tom's ghost have 
made its appearance in 1847 and not in 1747, what changes 
would have been remarked by that astonished escaped crimi- 
nal ! Over that road which the hangman used to travel 
constantly and the Oxford stage twice a week, go ten thou- 
sand carriages every day. Over yonder road, by which 
Dick Turpin fled to Windsor, and Squire Western jour- 
neyed into town when he came to take up his quarters at 
the Hercules Pillars on the outskirts of London, what a 
rush of civilization and order flows now ! What armies 
of gentlemen with umbrellas march to banks and cham- 
bers and counting-houses! What regiments of nurserj^- 
maids and pretty infantry, what peaceful processions of 
policemen, what light broughams and what gay carriages, 
what swarms of busy apprentices and artificers riding on 
omnibus-roofs, pass daily and hourly! Tom Idle's times 
are quite changed, many of the institutions gone into disuse 
which were admired in his day. There's more pity and 
kindness and a better chance for poor Tom's successors 
now than at that simpler period when Fielding hanged 
him and Hogarth drew him. 



166 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

To the student of history these admirable works must be 
invaluable, as they give us the most complete and truthful 
picture of the manners and even the thoughts of the past 
century. We look, and see pass before us the England 
of a hundred years ago. The peer in his drawing-room ; 
the lady of fashion in her apartment, foreign singers sur- 
rounding her, and the chamber filled with gew-gaws in the 
mode of that day; the church, with its quaint, florid archi- 
tecture and singing congregation ; the parson with his great 
wig, and the beadle with his cane, — all these are repre- 
sented before us, and we are sure of the truth of the por- 
trait. We see how the Lord Mayor dines in state, how 
the prodigal drinks and sports at the bagnio, how the poor 
girl beats hemp in Bridewell, how the thief divides his 
booty and drinks his punch at the night-cellar, and how 
he finishes his career at the gibbet. We may depend upon 
the perfect accuracy of these strange and varied portraits 
of the bygone generation. We see one of Walpole's Mem- 
bers of Parliament chaired after his election, and the lieges 
celebrating the event, and drinking confusion to the Pre- 
tender; we see the grenadiers and trainbands of the City 
marching out to meet the enemy, and have before us, with 
sword and firelock, and '* White Hanoverian Horse " 
embroidered on the cap, the very figures of the men who 
ran away with Johnny Cope, and who conquered at Cul- 
loden. The Yorkshire wagon rolls into the inn yard ; the 
country parson, in his jack-boots and his bands and short 
cassock, comes trotting into town, and we fancy it is Par- 
son Adams, with his sermons in his pocket. The Salisbury 
Fly sets forth from the old Angel. You see the passen- 
gers entering the great, heavy vehicle up the wooden 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 167 

steps, their hats tied down with handkerchiefs over their 
faces, and under their arms sword, hanger, and case-bottle ; 
the landlady, apoplectic with the liquors in her own bar, 
is tugging at the bell; the hunchbacked postilion (he may 
have ridden the leaders to Humphrey Clinker) is begging 
a gratuity ; the miser is grumbling at the bill ; Jack of the 
Centurion lies on the top of the clumsy vehicle, with a 
soldier by his side (it may be Smollett's Jack Hatchway; 
it has a likeness to Lismahago). You see the suburban 
fair and the strolling company of actors; the pretty milk- 
maid singing under the windows of the enraged French 
musician (it is such a girl as Steele charmingly described 
in the " Guardian " a few years before this date, singing 
under Mr. Ironside's window in Shire Lane her pleasant 
carol of a May morning). You see noblemen and black- 
legs bawling and betting in the Cockpit; you see Garrick 
as he Avas arrayed in " King Richard," Macheath and Polly 
in the dresses which they wore when they charmed our 
ancestors, and when noblemen in blue ribbons sat on 
the stage and listened to their delightful music. You see 
the ragged French soldiery, in their white coats and cock- 
ades, at Calais Gate : they are of the regiment, very likely, 
which friend Roderick Random joined before he was res- 
cued by his preserver Monsieur de Strap, with whom he 
fought on the famous day of Dettingen. You see the 
judges on the bench, the audience laughing in the pit, the 
student in the Oxford theatre, the citizen on his country 
walk; you see Broughton the boxer, Sarah Malcolm the 
murderess, Simon Lovat the traitor, John Wilkes the dema- 
gogue, leering at j^ou with that squint which has become 
historical, and with that face which, ugly as it was, he said 



168 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

he could make as captivating to woman as the countenance 
of the handsomest beau in town. All these sights and peo- 
ple are with you. After looking in the " Rake's Progress " 
at Hogarth's picture of Saint James's Palace Gate, you may 
people the street, but little altered within these hundred 
years, with the gilded carriages and thronging chairmen 
that bore the courtiers your ancestors to Queen Caroline's 
drawing-room more than a hundred years ago. 

What manner of man was he who executed these por- 
traits, — so various, so faithful, and so admirable ? In the 
London National Gallery most of us have seen the best 
and most carefully finished series of his comic paintings, 
and the portrait of his own honest face, of which the bright 
blue eyes shine out from the canvas and give you an idea of 
that keen and brave look with which William Hogarth 
regarded the world. No man w^as ever less of a hero. 
You see him before you and can fancy what he was, — a 
jovial, honest London citizen, stout and sturdy; a hearty, 
plain-spoken man, loving his laugh, his friends, his glass, 
his roast beef of old England, and having a proper bour- 
geois scorn for French frogs, for mounseers, and w^ooden 
shoes in general, for foreign fiddlers, foreign singers, and 
above all for foreign painters, whom he held in the most 
amusing contempt. 

It must have been great fun to hear him rage against 
Correggio and the Caracci ; to watch him thump the table 
and snap his fingers, and say, *' Historical painters be 
hanged ! here's the man that will paint against any of them 
for a hundred pounds. Correggio's Sigismunda ! Look at 
Bill Hogarth's Sigismunda ; look at my altar-piece at Saint 
Mary Redcliffe, Bristol; look at my Paul before Felix, 
and see whether I'm not as good as the best of them." 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 169 

Posterity has not quite confirmed honest Hogarth's opin- 
ion about his talents for the sublime. Although Swift 
could not :^ee the difference between tweedle-dee and twee- 
dle-dum, posterity has not shared the Dean's contempt for 
Handel ; the world has discovered a difference between 
tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and given a hearty applause 
and admiration to Hogarth too, but not exactly as a 
painter of scriptural subjects, or as a rival of Correggio. 
It does not take away from one's liking for the man, or 
from the moral of his story, or the humor of it, from one's 
admiration for the prodigious merit of his performances, 
to remember that he persisted to the last in believing that 
the world was in a conspiracy against him with respect to 
his talents as an historical painter, and that a set of mis- 
creants, as he called them, were employed to run his genius 
down. They say it was Liston's firm belief that he was a 
great and neglected tragic actor; they say that every one 
of us believes in his heart, or would like to have others 
believe, that he is something which he is not. One of the 
most notorious of the *' miscreants," Hogarth says, was 
Wilkes, who assailed him in the " North Briton ; " the 
other was Churchill, who put the " North Briton " attack 
into heroic verse, and published his " Epistle to Hogarth." 
Hogarth replied by that caricature of Wilkes in which the 
patriot still figures before us, with his Satanic grin and 
squint, and by a caricature of Churchill, in which he is rep- 
resented as a bear w^ith a staff, on which lie the first, lie 
the second, lie the tenth are engraved in unmistakable let- 
ters. There is very little mistake about honest Hogarth's 
satire : if he has to paint a man with his throat cut, he 
draws him with his head almost off; and he tried to do 



170 ENGLISH ?IUMORISTS 

the same for his enemies in this little controversy. " Hav- 
ing an old plate by me," says he, " with some parts ready, 
such as the background and a dog, I began to consider how 
I could turn so much w^ork laid aside to some account, and 
so patched up a print of Master Churchill in the charac- 
ter of a bear. The pleasure and pecuniary advantage 
w^hich I derived from these two engravings, together with 
occasionally riding on horseback, restored me to as much 
health as I can expect at my time of life." 

And so he concludes his queer little book of Anecdotes: 
" I have gone through the circumstances of a life which 
till lately passed pretty much to my own satisfaction, and I 
hope in no respect injurious to any other man. This I may 
safely assert, that I have done my best to make those about 
me tolerably happy, and my greatest enemy cannot say I 
ever did an intentional injury. What may follow, God 
knows." 

A queer account still exists of a holiday jaunt taken 
by Hogarth and four friends of his, who set out like the 
redoubted Mr. Pickwick and his companions, but just a 
hundred years before those heroes, and made an excursion 
to Gravesend, Rochester, Sheerness, and adjacent places. 
One of the gentlemen noted down the proceedings of the 
journey, for which Hogarth and a brother artist made 
drawings. The book is chiefly curious at this moment 
from showing the citizen life of those days, and the rough, 
jolly style of merriment, not of the five companions merely, 
but of thousands of jolly fellows of their time. Hogarth 
and his friends, quitting the Bedford Arms, Covent Gar- 
den, with a song, took water to Billingsgate, exchanging 
compliments w^ith the bargemen as they went down the 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 171 

river. At Billingsgate Hogarth made a " caracatura " 
of a facetious porter called the Duke of Puddledock, who 
agreeably entertained the party with the humors of the 
place. Hence they took a Gravesend boat for themselves, 
had straw^ to lie upon and a tilt over their heads, they 
say, and went down the river at night, sleeping and singing 
jolly choruses. 

They arrived at Gravesend at six, when they washed 
their faces and hands, and had their wigs powdered. Then 
they sallied forth for Rochester on foot, and drank by the 
way three pots of ale. At one o'clock they went to din- 
ner with excellent port and a quantity more beer, and 
afterwards Hogarth and Scott played at hop-scotch in the 
town hall. It would appear that they slept most of them 
in one room, and the chronicler of the party describes them 
all as waking at seven o'clock and telling each other their 
dreams. You have rough sketches by Hogarth of the 
incidents of this holiday excursion. The sturdy little 
painter is seen sprawling over a plank to a boat at Grave- 
send ; the whole company are represented in one design in 
a fisherman's room, where they had all passed the night. 
One gentleman in a nightcap is shaving himself ; another 
is being shaved by the fisherman ; a third, with a handker- 
chief over his bald pate, is taking his breakfast; and 
Hogarth is sketching the whole scene. 

They describe at night how they returned to their quar- 
ters, drank to their friends as usual, emptied several cans 
of good flip, all singing merrily. 

It is a jolly party of tradesmen engaged at high jinks. 
These were the manners and pleasures of Hogarth, of his 
time very likely, of men not very refined, but honest and 



172 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

merry. It is a brave London citizen, with John Bull 
habits, prejudices, and pleasures. 

Of Smollett's associates and manner of life the author 
of the admirable " Humphrey Clinker " has given us an 
interesting account in that most amusing of novels. 

I have no doubt that this picture by Smollett is as faith- 
ful a one as any from the pencil of his kindred humorist, 
Hogarth. 

We have before us, and painted by his own hand, Tobias 
Smollett, the manly, kindly, honest, and irascible; worn 
and battered, but still brave and full of heart, after a long 
struggle against a hard fortune. His brain had been 
busied with a hundred different schemes; he had been 
reviewer and historian, critic, medical writer, poet, pamph- 
leteer. He had fought endless literary battles, and braved 
and wielded for years the cudgels of controversy. It was 
a hard and savage fight in those days, and a niggard pay. 
He was oppressed by illness, age, narrow fortune ; but his 
spirit was still resolute, and his courage steady. The bat- 
tle over, he could do justice to the enemy with whom he 
had been so fiercely engaged, and give a not unfriendly 
grasp to the hand that had mauled him. He is like one 
of those Scotch cadets, of whom history gives us so many 
examples, and whom, with a national fidelity, the great 
Scotch novelist has painted so charmingly, — of gentle 
birth and narrow means, going out from his northern 
home to win his fortune in the world, and to fight his way 
armed with courage, hunger, and keen wits. His crest 
is a shattered oak-tree, with green leaves yet springing 
from it. On his ancient coat-of-arms there is a lion and 
a horn; this shield of his was battered and dinted in a 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 173 

hundred fights and brawls, through which the stout Scotch- 
man bore it courageously. You see somehow that he is a 
gentleman, through all his battling and struggling, his 
poverty, his hard-fought successes, and his defeats. His 
novels are recollections of his own adventures, — his char- 
acters drawn, as I should think, from personages with 
whom he became acquainted in his ow^n career of life. 
Strange companions he must have had ; queer acquaint- 
ances he made in the Glasgow College, in the country 
apothecary's shop, in the gun-room of the man-of-war 
where he served as surgeon, and in the hard life on shore, 
where the sturdy adventurer struggled for fortune. He 
did not invent much, as I fancy, but had the keenest per- 
ceptive faculty, and described what he saw with wonder- 
ful relish and delightful broad humor. I think Uncle 
Bowling in '' Roderick Random " is as good a character 
as Squire Western himself; and Mr. Morgan, the Welsh 
apothecary, is as pleasant as Doctor Caius. What man 
who has made his inestimable acquaintance, what novel- 
reader who loves Don Quixote and Major Dalgetty, will 
refuse his most cordial acknowledgements to the admir- 
able Lieutenant Lismahago? The novel of " Humphrey 
Clinker " is, I do think, the most laughable story that 
has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing 
began. Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble must 
keep Englishmen on the grin for ages yet to come ; and 
in their letters and the story of their loves there is a per- 
petual fount of sparkling laughter, as inexhaustible as 
Bladud's well. 

Fielding, too, has described, though with a greater hand, 
the characters and scenes which he knew and saw. He 



174 ENGLI5?I HUMORISTS 

had more than ordinary opportunities for becoming 
acquainted with life. His family and education first, his 
fortunes and misfortunes afterwards, brought him into the 
society of every rank and condition of man. He is him- 
self the hero of his books ; he is wild Tom Jones, he is 
wild Captain Booth, — less wild, I am glad to think, than 
his predecessor, at least heartily conscious of demerit, and 
anxious to amend. 

When Fielding first came upon the town in 1727, the 
recollection of the great wits w^as still fresh in the coffee- 
houses and assemblies, and the judges there declared that 
young Harry Fielding had more spirits and w^it than Con- 
greve or any of his brilliant successors. His figure w^as 
tall and stahvart, his face handsome, manly, and noble- 
looking. To the very last days of his life he retained a 
grandeur of air; and although worn down by disease, his 
aspect and presence imposed respect upon the people round 
about him. 

A dispute took place between Mr. Fielding and the 
captain of the ship in which he was making his last voyage, 
and Fielding relates how the man finally went down on 
his knees, and begged his passenger's pardon. He was 
living up to the last days of his life, and his spirit never 
gave in. His vital power must have been immensely 
strong. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu prettily charac- 
terizes Fielding and this capacity for happiness which he 
possessed, in a little notice of his death, when she com- 
pares him to Steele, who was as improvident and as happy 
as he was, and says that both should have gone on living 
forever. One can fancy the eagerness and gusto with 
which a man of Fielding's frame, with his vast health and 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDLXG 175 

robust appetite, his ardent spirits, his joyful humor, and 
his keen and heart)^ relish for life, must have seized and 
drunk that cup of pleasure which the town offered to him. 
Can any of my hearers remember the youthful feats of a 
college breakfast, the meats devoured and the cups quaffed 
in that Homeric feast? I can call to mind some of the 
heroes of those youthful banquets, and fancy young Field- 
ing from Leyden rushing upon the feast with his great 
laugh, and immense, healthy young appetite, eager and 
vigorous to enjoy. The young man's wit and manners 
made him friends everywhere : he lived with the grand 
man's society of those days; he was courted by peers, and 
m.en of wealth and fashion. As he had a paternal allow- 
ance from his father. General Fielding, which, to use 
Henry's own phrase, any man might pay who would; as 
he liked good wine, good clothes, and good company, which 
are all expensive articles to purchase, — Harry Fielding 
began to run into debt, and borrow money in that easy 
manner in which Captain Booth borrows money in the 
novel; was in nowise particular in accepting a few pieces 
from the purses of his rich friends, and bore down upon 
more than one of them, as Walpole tells us only too truly, 
for a dinner or a guinea. To supply himself with the 
latter he began to write theatrical pieces, having already, 
no doubt, a considerable acquaintance amongst the Old- 
fields and Bracegirdles behind the scenes. He laughed 
at these pieces and scorned them. When the audience 
upon one occasion began to hiss a scene which he was too 
lazy to correct, and regarding which, when Garrick remon- 
strated with him, he said that the public was too stupid 
to find out the badness of his work, — when the audience 



176 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

began to hiss, Fielding said with characteristic coolness, 
" They have found it out, have they? " He did not pre- 
pare his novels in this way, and with a very different care 
and interest laid the foundations and built up the edifices 
of his future fame. 

Time and shower have very little damaged those. Tlie 
fashion and ornaments are perhaps of the architecture of 
that age, but the buildings remain strong and lofty, and 
of admirable proportions, masterpieces of genius and monu- 
ments of workmanlike skill. 

I cannot offer or hope to make a hero of Harry Field- 
ing. Why hide his faults? Why conceal his weaknesses 
in a cloud of periphrases? Why not show him, like him, 
as he is, — not robed in a marble toga, and draped and 
polished in a heroic attitude, but with inked ruffles, and 
claret stains on his tarnished laced coat, and on his manly 
face the marks of good fellowship, of illness, of kindness, 
of care and wine? Stained as you see him, and worn 
by care and dissipation, that man retains some of the 
most precious and splendid human qualities and endow- 
ments. , He has an admirable natural love of truth, the 
keenest instinctive antipathy to hypocrisy, the happiest 
satirical gift of laughing it to scorn. His wit is won- 
derfully wise and detective; it flashes upon a rogue and 
lightens up a rascal like a policeman's lantern. He is 
one of the manliest and kindliest of human beings; in 
the midst of all his imperfections, he respects female inno- 
cence and infantine tenderness as j^ou would suppose such 
a great-hearted, courageous soul would respect and care 
for them. He could not be so brave, generous, truth- 
telling as he is were he not infinitely merciful, pitiful, 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDLNG 177 

and tender. He will give any man his purse, — he can- 
not help kindness and profusion. He may have low 
tastes, but not a mean mind ; he admires with all his heart 
good and virtuous men, stoops to no flattery, bears no 
rancor, disdains all disloyal arts, does his public duty 
uprightly, is fondly loved by his family, and dies at his 
work. 

If that theory be (and I have no doubt it is) the right 
and safe one, that human nature is always pleased w^ith 
the spectacle of innocence rescued by fidelity, purity, and 
courage, I suppose that of the heroes of Fielding's three 
novels we should like honest Joseph Andrews the best, 
and Captain Booth the second, and Tom Jones the third. 

Joseph Andrews, though he wears Lady Booby's cast-off 
Livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as Tom Jones in 
his fustian suit, or Captain Booth in regimentals. He 
has, like those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, a 
high courage, and a handsome face. The accounts of 
Joseph's bravery and good qualities; his voice, too musical 
to halloo to the dogs ; his bravery in riding races for the 
gentlemen of the county, and his constancy in refusing 
bribes and temptation, — have something affecting in their 
naivete and freshness, and prepossess one in favor of that 
handsome young hero. The rustic bloom of Fanny and 
the delightful simplicity of Parson Adams are described 
with a friendliness which wins the reader of their story; 
we part from them with more regret than from Booth and 
Jones. 

Fielding, no doubt, began to write this novel in ridi- 
cule of '* Pamela," for which work one can understand 
the hearty contempt and antipathy which such an athletic 



178 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and boisterous genius as Fielding's must have entertained. 
He could not do otherwise than laugh at the puny cock- 
ney book-seller, pouring out endless volumes of senti- 
mental twaddle, and hold him up to scorn as a moUcoddle 
and a milksop. His genius had been nursed on sack 
posset, and not on dishes of tea. His muse had sung the 
loudest in tavern choruses, had seen the daylight stream- 
ing in over thousands of emptied bowls, and reeled home 
to chambers on the shoulders of the watchman. Richard-- 
son's goddess w^as attended by old maids and dowagers, 
and fed on muffins and bohea. " Milksop! " roars Harry 
Fielding, clattering at the timid shop-shutters. " Wretch! 
Monster! Mohock!" shrieks the sentimental author of 
" Pamela; " and all the ladies of his court cackle out an 
affrighted chorus. Fielding proposes to write a book in 
ridicule of the author, whom he disliked and utterly 
scorned and laughed at; but he is himself of so generous, 
jovial, and kindly a turn that he begins to like the charac- 
ters w^hich he invents, cannot help making them manly 
and pleasant as well as ridiculous, and before he has done 
with them all loves them heartily every one. 

Richardson's sickening antipathy for Harry Fielding is 
quite as natural as the other's laughter and contempt at 
the sentimentalist. I have not learned that these likings 
and dislikings have ceased in the present day; and every 
author must lay his account not only to misrepresentation, 
but to honest enmity among critics, and to being hated 
and abused for good as well as for bad reasons. Richard- 
son disliked Fielding's w^orks quite honestly; Walpole 
quite honestly spoke of them as vulgar and stupid. Their 
squeamish stomachs sickened at the rough fare and the 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 179 

rough guests assembled at Fielding's jolly revel. Indeed 
the cloth might have been cleaner, and the dinner and 
the company were scarce such as suited a dandy. The kind 
and wise old Johnson would not sit down with him. 
But a greater scholar than Johnson could afford to admire 
that astonishing genius of Harry Fielding; and we all 
know the lofty panegyric which Gibbon wrote of him, 
and which remains a towering monument to the great 
novelist's memory. " Our immortal Fielding," Gibbon 
writes, " was of the younger branch of the Earls of Den- 
bigh, who drew their origin from the Counts of Haps- 
burgh. The successors of Charles V. may disdain their 
brethren of England, but the romance of ' Tom Jones,' 
that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive 
the palace of the Escurial and the Imperial Eagle of 
Austria." 

There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great 
judge. To have your name mentioned by Gibbon is like 
having it written on the dome of St. Peter's. Pilgrims 
from all the world admire and behold it. 

As a picture of manners, the novel of " Tom Jones " 
is indeed exquisite ; as a work of construction, quite a 
wonder. The by-play of wisdom, the power of observa- 
tion, the multiplied felicitous turns and thoughts, the 
varied character of the great Comic Epic, keep the reader 
in a perpetual admiration and curiosity. But against 
Mr. Thomas Jones himself we have a right to put in a 
protest, and quarrel with the esteem the author evidently 
has for that character. Charles Lamb says finely of Jones, 
that a single hearty laugh from him " clears the air," — 
but then it is in a certain state of the atmosphere. It 



180 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

might clear the air when such personages as Blifil or 
Lady Bellaston poison it; but I fear very much that 
(except until the very last scene of the story) when Mr. 
Jones enters Sophia's drawing-room, the pure air there is 
rather tainted with the young gentleman's tobacco-pipe 
and punch. I cannot say that I think Mr. Jones a vir- 
tuous character. I cannot say but that I think Fielding's 
evident liking and admiration for Mr. Jones shows that 
the great humorist's moral sense was blunted by his life, 
and that here, in Art and Ethics, there is a great error. 
If it is right to have a hero whom we may admire, let 
us at least take care that he is admirable. If, as is the 
plan of some authors (a plan decidedly against their 
interests, be it said), it is propounded that there exists 
in life no such being, and therefore that in novels, the 
picture of life, there should appear no such character, — 
then Mr. Thomas Jones becomes an admissible person, 
and we examine his defects and good qualities, as we do 
those of Parson Thwackum or Miss Seagrim. But a 
hero with a flawed reputation, a hero sponging for a 
guinea, a hero who cannot pay his landlady, and is obliged 
to let his honor out to hire, is absurd, and his claim to 
heroic rank untenable. I protest against Mr. Thomas 
Jones holding such rank at all. I protest even against 
his being considered a more than ordinary young fellow, 
ruddy-cheeked, broad-shouldered, and fond of wine and 
pleasure. He would not rob a church, but that is all; 
and a pretty long argument may be debated as to which 
of these old types — the spendthrift, the hypocrite, Jones 
and Blifil, Charles and Joseph Surface — is the worst 
member of society and the most deserving of censure. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 181 

The prodigal Captain Booth is a better man than his pre- 
decessor ]Mr. Jones, in so far as he thinks much more 
humbly of himself than Jones did ; goes down on his 
knees and owns his weaknesses, and cries out, " Not for 
my sake, but for the sake of my pure and sweet and beau- 
tiful wife Amelia, I pray j^ou, O critical reader, to forgive 
me." That stern moralist regards him from the bench 
(the judge's practice out of court is not here the ques- 
tion), and says: "Captain Booth, it is perfectly true 
that your life has been disreputable, and that on many 
occasions j^ou have shown yourself to be no better than 
a scamp. You have been tippling at the tavern when 
the kindest and sweetest lady in the world has cooked 
your little supper of boiled mutton and awaited you all 
the night; you have spoilt the little dish of boiled mutton 
thereby, and caused pangs and pains to Amelia's tender 
heart. You have got into debt without the means of 
paying it; you have gambled the money with which you 
ought to have paid your rent; you have spent in drink or 
in worse amusements the sums which your poor wife has 
raised upon her little home treasures, her own ornaments, 
and the toys of her children. But, you rascal! you own 
humbly that you are no better than you should be; you 
never for one moment pretend that you are anything but 
a miserable, weak-minded rogue: you do in your heart 
adore that angelic woman, your wife; and for her sake, 
sirrah, you shall have your discharge. Lucky for you, 
and for others like you, that in spite of your failings and 
Imperfections, pure hearts pity and love you. For your 
wife's sake you are permitted to go hence without a 
remand ; and I beg you, by the way, to carry to that angel- 



182 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

ical lady the expression of the cordial respect and admira- 
tion of this court." Amelia pleads for her husband, Will 
Booth; Amelia pleads for her reckless, kindly old father, 
Harry Fielding. To have invented that character is not 
only a triumph of art, but it is a good action. They 
say it was in his own home that Fielding knew her and 
loved her, and from his own wife that he drew the most 
charming character in English fiction. Fiction! Why 
fiction? Why not history? I know Amelia just as well 
as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I believe in Colonel 
Bath almost as much as in Colonel Gardiner or the Duke 
of Cumberland. I admire the author of " Amelia," and 
thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet 
and delightful companion and friend. " Amelia " per- 
haps is not a better story than " Tom Jones," but it has 
the better ethics; the prodigal repents, at least, before 
forgiveness, — whereas that odious, broad-backed Mr. 
Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an interval of 
remorse for his manifold errors and shortcomings, and is 
not half punished enough before the great prize of fortune 
and love falls to his share. I am angry with Jones. Too 
much of the plum-cake and rewards of life fall to that 
boisterous, swaggering j^oung scapegrace. Sophia actually 
surrenders without a proper sense of decorum, — the fond, 
foolish, palpitating little creature! " Indeed, Mr. Jones," 
she says, " it rests with you to appoint the day." I sup- 
pose Sophia is drawn from life as w^ell as Amelia; and 
many a young fellow no better than Mr. Thomas Jones 
has carried by a coup de main the heart of many a kind 
girl w^ho was a great deal too good for him. 

What a wonderful art ! What an admirable gift of 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 183 

nature was it by which the author of these tales was 
endowed, and which enabled him to fix our interest, to 
waken our sympathy, to seize upon our credulity, so that 
we believe in his people, — speculate gravely upon their 
faults or their excellences ; prefer this one or that ; deplore 
Jones's fondness for drink and play, Booth's fondness for 
play and drink, and the unfortunate position of the wives 
of both gentlemen ; love and admire those ladies with all 
our hearts, and talk about them as faithfully as if we had 
breakfasted with them this morning in their actual draw- 
ing-rooms, or should meet them this afternoon in the 
Park! What a genius, what a vigor, what a bright-eyed 
intelligence and observation, what a wholesome hatred for 
meanness and knavery, what a vast sympathy, what a 
cheerfulness, w^hat a manly relish of life, what a love of 
human kind, what a poet is here, — watching, meditating, 
brooding, creating! What multitudes of truths has that 
man left behind him! What generations he has taught 
to laugh wisely and fairly! What scholars he has formed 
and accustomed to the exercise of thoughtful humor and 
the manly play of wit ! What a courage he had ! What 
a dauntless and constant cheerfulness of intellect, that 
burned bright and steady through all the storms of his 
life, and never deserted its last wreck! It is wonderful 
to think of the pains and misery which the man suf- 
fered, — the pressure of want, illness, remorse which he 
endured, — and that the writer was neither malignant 
nor melancholy, his view of truth never warped, and his 
generous human kindness never surrendered. 

In the quarrel mentioned before, which happened on 
Fielding's last voyage to Lisbon, and when the stout cap- 



184 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

tain of the ship fell down on his knees and asked the 
sick man's pardon, " I did not suffer," Fielding says, in 
his hearty, manly way, his eyes lighting up as it were 
with their old fire, — "I did not suffer a brave man and 
an old man to remain a moment in that posture, but 
immediately forgave him." Indeed, I think, with his 
noble spirit and unconquerable generosity. Fielding reminds 
one of those brave men of whom one reads in stories of 
English shipwrecks and disasters, — of the officer on the 
African shore, when disease has destroyed the crew, and 
he himself is seized by fever, w^ho throws the lead with a 
death-stricken hand, takes the soundings, carries the ship 
out of the river or off the dangerous coast, and dies in 
the manly endeavor; of the wounded captain, when the 
vessel founders, who never loses his heart, who eyes the 
danger steadily, and has a cheery word for all, until the 
inevitable fate overwhelms him, and the gallant ship goes 
down. Such a brave and gentle heart, such an intrepid 
and courageous spirit, I love to recognize in the manly, 
the English, Harry Fielding. 



LECTURE THE SIXTH 

STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 

Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second son of a 
numerous race, descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop 
of York, in the reign of James II., and children of Simon 
Sterne and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of Elvington, 
near York. Roger was a lieutenant in Handyside's regi- 
ment, and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. 
He married the daughter of a noted sutler (" N.B., he 
was in debt to him," his son writes, pursuing the paternal 
biography), and marched through the world with this 
companion, she following the regiment, and bringing many 
children to poor Roger Sterne. The captain was an iras- 
cible but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, and 
informs us that his sire was run through the body at 
Gibraltar, by a brother officer, in a duel which arose out 
of a dispute about a goose. Roger never entirely recov- 
ered from the effects of this rencontre, but died presently 
at Jamaica, whither he had followed the drum. 

Lawrence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in 
Ireland, in 1713, and travelled for the first ten years of 
his life, on his father's march, from barrack to transport, 
from Ireland to England. 

One relative of his mother's took her and her family 
under shelter for ten months at Mullingar; another col- 
lateral descendant of the Archbishop's housed them for a 
year at his castle near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was 

185 



186 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

put to school at Halifax in England, finally was adopted 
by his kinsman of Elvington, and parted company with 
his father the Captain, who marched on his path of life 
till he met the fatal goose which closed his career. The 
most picturesque and delightful parts of Lawrence Sterne's 
writings we owe to his recollections of the military life. 
Trim's montero cap, and Le Fevre's sword, and dear 
Uncle Toby's roquelaure are doubtless reminiscences of 
the boy who had lived with the followers of William and 
Marlborough, and had beaten time with his little feet to 
the fifes of Ramillies in Dublin barrack-yard, or played 
with the torn flags and halberds of Malplaquet on the 
parade-ground at Clonmel. 

Lawrence remained at Halifax school till he was eigh- 
teen years old. His wit and cleverness appear to have 
acquired the respect of his master here; for when the 
usher whipped Lawrence for writing his name on the 
newly whitewashed schoolroom ceiling, the pedagogue in 
chief rebuked the understrapper, and said that the name 
should never be efl^aced, for Sterne was a boy of genius, 
and would come to preferment. 

His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to Jesus 
College, Cambridge, where he remained five years, and 
taking orders, got through his uncle's interest the living 
of Sutton and the prebendary of -York. Through his 
wife's connections he got the, living of Stillington. He 
married her in 1741, having ardently courted the young 
lady for some years previously. It was not until the 
young lady fancied herself dying that she made Sterne 
acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. One 
evening when he was sitting with her, with an almost 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 187 

broken heart to see her so ill (the Reverend Mr. Sterne's 
heart was a good deal broken in the course of his life), 
she said : " My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for 
I verily believe I have not long to live; but I have left 
you every shilling of my fortune," — a generosity w^hich 
overpowered Sterne. She recovered ; and so they were 
married, and grew heartily tired of each other before 
many years were over. " Nescio quid est materia cum 
me," Sterne writes to one of his friends (in dog-Latin, 
and very sad dog-Latin too) ; " sed sum fatigatus et aegro- 
tus de mea uxore plus quam unquam," — w^hich means, I 
am sorry to say, " I don't know w^hat is the matter with 
me ; but I am more tired and sick of my wife than ever." 
This to be sure was five-and-twenty years after Laurey 
had been overcome by her generosity, and she by Laurey's 
love. Then he wrote to her of the delights of marriage, 
saying: "We will be as merry and as innocent as our 
first parents in Paradise, before the arch-fiend entered that 
indescribable scene. The kindest affections will have room 
to expand in our retirement; let the human tempest and 
hurricane rage at a distance, the desolation is beyond the 
horizon of peace. My L. has seen a polyanthus blow in 
December ? — some friendly wall has sheltered it from 
the biting wind. No planetary influence shall reach us 
but that which presides and cherishes the sweetest flowers. 
The gloomy family of care and distrust shall be banished 
from our dwelling, guarded by thy kind and tutelar deity. 
We will sing our choral songs of gratitude, and rejoice 
to the end of our pilgrimage. Adieu, my L. Return 
to one who languishes for thy society! As I take up 
my pen, my poor pulse quickens, my pale face glows, and 



188 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

tears are trickling down on my paper as I trace the 
word L." 

And it is about this woman, with whom he finds no 
fault but that she bores him, that our philanthropist 

5 wTites, " Sum fatigatus et aegrotus." Sum 77iortaliter in 
amore with somebody else ! That fine flower of love, that 
polyanthus over which Sterne snivelled so many tears, 
could not last for a quarter of a century ! 

Or rather it could not be expected that a gentleman 

10 with such a fountain at command should keep it to arroser 
one homely old lady, when a score of younger and pret- 
tier people might be refreshed from the same gushing 
source. It was in December, 1767, that the Reverend 
Lawrence Sterne, the famous Shandean, the charming 

15 Yorick, the delight of the fashionable world, the delicious 
divine for whose sermons the whole polite world was 
subscribing, the occupier of Rabelais's easy chair (only 
fresh stuffed and more elegant than when in possession 
of the cynical old curate of Meudon), the more than rival 

20 of the Dean of Saint Patrick's, wrote the above-quoted 
respectable letter to his friend in London ; and it was in 
April of the same year that he was pouring out his fond 
heart to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, wife of " Daniel Draper, 
Esquire, Councillor of Bombay, and in 1775 chief of the 

25 factory of Surat, — a gentleman very much respected in 
that quarter of the globe." 

'* I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, " on my 
return from Lord Bathurst's, where I dined [the letter has this 
merit in it, that it contains a pleasant reminiscence of better men 
30 than Sterne, and introduces us to a portrait of a kind old gentle- 
man] — I got thy letter last night, Eliza, on my return from Lord 
Bathurst's, and where I was heard, as I talked of thee an hour 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 189 

without intermission, with so much pleasure and attention that 
the good old Lord toasted your health three different times; and 
now he is in his 85th year, says he hopes to live long enough to be 
introduced as a friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her 
eclipse all other Nabobesses as much in wealth as she does already 
in exterior, and, what is far better [for Sterne is nothing without 
his morality], in interior merit. This nobleman is an old friend 
of mine. You know he was always the protector of men of wit 
and genius, and has had those of the last cehtury — Addison, 
Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, &c. — always at his table. The manner 
in which his notice began of me was as singular as it was polite. 
He came up to me one day as I was at the Princess of Wales's 
Court, and said : ' I want to know you, Mr. Sterne, but it is fit 
you also should know who it is that wishes this pleasure. You 
have heard of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and 
Swifts have sung and spoken so much? I have lived my life 
with geniuses of that cast, but have survived them; and despair- 
ing ever to find their equals, it is some years since I have shut up 
my books and closed my accounts. But you have kindled a desire 
in me of opening them once more before I die, — which I now do ; 
so go home and dine with me.' This nobleman, I say, is a 
prodigy, for he has all the wit and promptness of a man of 
thirty ; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others, 
beyond whatever I knew, — added to which a man of learning, 
courtesy, and feeling. 

" He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncommon satisfaction, 
for there was only a third person, and of sensibility, with us; and 
a most sentimental afternoon till nine o'clock have we passed! 
But thou, Eliza, wert the star that conducted and enlivened the 
discourse! And when I talked not of thee, still didst thou fill my 
mind and warm every thought I uttered, for I am not ashamed to 
acknowledge I greatly miss thee. Best of all good girls! the 
sufferings I have sustained all night in consequence of thine, 
Eliza, are beyond the power of words. . . . And so thou hast 
fixed thy Bramin's portrait over thy writing-desk, and wilt consult 
it in all doubts and difficulties? Grateful and good girl! Yorick 
smiles contentedly over all thou dost; his picture does not do jus- 



190 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

tice to his own complacency. I am glad your shipmates are 
friendly beings [Eliza was at Deal, going back to the Councillor 
at Bombay; and indeed it was high time she should be off]. You 
could least dispense with what is contrary to your own nature, 
which is soft and gentle, Eliza ; it would civilize savages, though 
pity were it thou should'st be tainted with the office. Write to me, 
my child, thy delicious letters. Let them speak the easy carelessness 
of a heart that opens itself anyhow, everyhow. Such, Eliza, I 
write to thee! [The artless rogue, of course he did!] And so I 
should ever love thee, most artlessly, most affectionately, if Provi- 
dence permitted thy residence in the same section of the globe ; 
for I am all that honor and affection can make me 

" ' Thy Bramin.' " 

The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper until the 
departure of the " Earl of Chatham " Indiaman from 
Deal, on the 2d of April, 1767. He is amiably anxious 
about the fresh paint for Eliza's cabin ; he is uncommonly 
solicitous about her companions on board : — 

" I fear the best of your shipmates are only genteel by compari- 
son with the contrasted crew with which thou beholdest them. So 
was — you know who — from the same fallacy which was put 
upon your judgment when — But I v.'ill not mortify you!" 

" You know who " was, of course, Daniel Draper, 
Esquire, of Bombay, — a gentleman very much respected 
in that quarter of the globe, and about whose probable 
health our worthy Bramin writes with delightful can- 
dor: — 

" I honor you, Eliza, for keeping secret some things which, if 
explained, had been a panegyric on yourself. There is a dignity 
in venerable affliction which will not allow it to appeal to the 
world for pity or redress. Well have you supported that charac- 
ter, my amiable, my philosophic friend ! And, indeed, I begin to 
think you have as many virtues as my Uncle Toby's widow. 
Talking of widows, — pray, Eliza, if ever you are such, do not 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 191 

think of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob, because I design 
to marry you myself. My wife cannot live long, and I know not 
the woman I should like so well for her substitute as yourself. 
'T is true I am ninety-five in constitution, and you but twenty- 
five; but what I want in youth I will make up in wit and good- 
humor. Not Swift so loved his Stella, Scarron his Maintenon, or 
Waller his Saccharissa. Tell me, in answer to this, that you 
approve and honor the proposal." 

Approve and honor the proposal ! The coward was 
writing gay letters to his friends this while, with sneer- 
ing allusions to this poor foolish Bramine. Her ship 
was not out of the Downs and the charming Sterne was 
at the Mount Coffee-house, with a sheet of gilt-edged 
paper before him, offering that precious treasure his heart 

to Lady P , asking whether it gave her pleasure to 

see him unhappy, whether it added to her triumph that 
her eyes and lips had turned a man into a fool, — quoting 
the Lord's Prayer, with a horrible baseness of blasphemy, 
as a proof that he had desired not to be led into tempta- 
tion, and swearing himself the most tender and sincere fool 
in the world ! It was from his home at Coxwould that 
he wrote the Latin letter, which, I suppose, he was 
ashamed to put into English. I find in my copy of the 
Letters that there is a note of, I cannot call it admiration, 
at Letter 112, which seems to announce that there was 
a No. 3 to whom the wretched, worn-out old scamp was 
paying his addresses; and the year after, having come 
back to his lodgings in Bond Street, with his " Sentimen- 
tal Journey " to launch upon the town, eager as ever for 
praise and pleasure, — as vain, as wicked, as witty, as false 
as he had ever been, — death at length seized the feeble 
wretch, and on the 18th of March, 1768, that "bale of 



192 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

cadaverous goods," as he calls his body, was consigned to 
Pluto. In his last letter there is one sign of grace, — the 
real affection with which he entreats a friend to be a 
guardian to his daughter Lj^dia. All his letters to her 
are artless, kind, affectionate, and not sentimental, — as 
a hundred pages in his writings are beautiful, and full, 
not of surprising humor merely, but of genuine love and 
kindness. A perilous trade, indeed, is that of a man who 
has to bring his tears and laughter, his recollections, his 
personal griefs and joys, his private thoughts and feelings 
to market, to write them on paper and sell them for 
money! Does he exaggerate his grief, so as to get his 
reader's pity for a false sensibility; feign indignation^ so 
as to establish a character for virtue ; elaborate repartees, 
so that he may pass for a wit; steal from other authors, 
and put down the theft to the credit side of his own repu- 
tation for ingenuity and learning ; feign originality ; affect 
benevolence or misanthropy; appeal to the gallery gods 
with claptraps and vulgar baits to catch applause? 

How much of the paint and emphasis is necessary for 
the fair business of the stage, and how much of the rant 
and rouge is put on for the vanity of the actor? His 
audience trusts him: can he trust himself? How^ much 
was deliberate calculation and imposture, how much was 
false sensibility, and how much true feeling? Where did 
the lie begin, and did he know where; and w^here did the 
truth end in the art and scheme of this man of genius, 
this actor, this quack? Some time since, I was in the 
company of a French actor who began after dinner, and 
at his own request, to sing French songs of the sort called 
des chansons grivoises, and which he performed admir- 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 193 

ably, and to the dissatisfaction of most persons present. 
Having finished these, he commenced a sentimental ballad ; 
it was so charmingly sung that it touched all persons 
present, and especially the singer himself, whose voice 
trembled, w^hose eyes filled with emotion, and who was 
snivelling and weeping quite genuine tears by the time his 
own ditty w^as over. I suppose Sterne had this artistical 
sensibility; he used to blubber perpetually in his study; 
and finding his tears infectious, and that they brought 
him a great popularity, he exercised the lucrative gift of 
weeping: he utilized it, and cried on every occasion. I 
own that I do not value or respect much the cheap drib- 
ble of those fountains. He fatigues me with his perpetual 
disquiet and his uneasy appeals to my risible or sentimental 
faculties. He is always looking in my face, w^atching his 
efifect, uncertain whether I think him an impostor or not, 
— posture-making, coaxing, and imploring me: "See 
what sensibility I have! Own now that I'm very clever! 
Do cry now, you can't resist this! " The humor of Swift 
and Rabelais, whom he pretended to succeed, poured from 
them as naturally as a song does from a bird ; they lose 
no manly dignity with it, but laugh their hearty great 
laugh out of their broad chests as nature bade them. Rut 
this man — who can make 5^ou laugh, who can make you 
cry too — never lets his reader alone, or w^ill permit his 
audience repose; when you are quiet, he fancies he must 
rouse you, and turns over head and heels, or sidles up 
and whispers a nasty story. The man is a great jester, not 
a great humorist. He goes to w^ork systematically and of 
cold blood; paints his face, puts on his ruf¥ and motley 
clothes, and lays down his carpet and tumbles on it. 



194 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

For instance, take the " Sentimental Journey," and see 
in the writer the deliberate propensity to make points and 
seek applause. He gets to Dessein's Hotel ; he wants a 
carriage to travel to Paris, he goes to the inn-yard, and 
begins what the actors call " business " at once. There is 
that little carriage (the desobligeante) : — 

" Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of 
Europe in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coach-yard ; and hav- 
ing sallied out thence but a vamped-up business at first, though 
it had been twice taken to pieces on Mont Cenis, it had not 
profited much by its adventures, but by none so little as the stand- 
ing so many months unpitied in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's 
coach-yard. Much, indeed, was not to be said for it; but some- 
thing might; and when a few words will rescue Misery out of her 
distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them." 

Le tour est fait I Paillasse has tumbled! Paillasse has 
jumped over the desobligeante, cleared it, hood and all, 
and bows to the noble company. Does anybody believe 
that this is a real sentiment; that this luxury of gener- 
osity, this gallant rescue of Misery out of an old cab, is 
genuine feeling? It is as genuine as the virtuous oratory 
of Joseph Surface, when he begins, " The man who," &c., 
and wishes to pass off for a saint with his credulous, good- 
humored dupes. 

Our friend purchases the carriage. After turning that 
notorious old monk to good account, and effecting (like a 
soft and good-natured Paillasse as he was, and very free 
with his money when he had it) an exchange of snuff-boxes 
with the old Franciscan, jogs out of Calais ; sets down in 
immense figures on the credit side of his account the sous 
he gives away to the Montreuil beggars; and at Nampont 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 195 

gets out of the chaise and whimpers over that famous dead 
donkey, for which any sentimentalist may cry who will. 
It is agreeably and skilfully done, that dead jackass; like 
Monsieur de Soubise's cook on the campaign, Sterne dresses 
it and serves it up quite tender and with a very piquant 
sauce. But tears and fine feelings, and a white pocket- 
handerchief and a funeral sermon, and horses and feathers, 
and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with a dead donkey 
inside, — psha, mountebank! I'll not give thee one penny 
more for that trick, donkey and all ! 

This donkey had appeared once before, with signal 
effect. In 1765, three years before the publication of the 
" Sentimental Journey," the seventh and eighth volumes 
of " Tristram Shandy " were given to the world, and the 
famous Lyons donkey makes his entry in those volumes 
(pp. 315,316): — 

" 'T was but a poor ass, with a couple of large panniers at his 
back, who had just turned in to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops 
and cabbage-leaves, and stood dubious, with his two forefeet at 
the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards 
the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to go in 
or no. 

" Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear 
to strike. There is a patient endurance of suifering written so 
unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily 
for him that it always disarms me, and to that degree that I do 
not like to speak unkindly to him. On the contrary, meet him 
where I will, whether in town or country, in cart or under pan- 
niers, whether in liberty or bondage, I have ever something civil 
to say to him on my part; and as one word begets another (if he 
has as little to do as I), I generally fall into conversation with 
him. And surely never is m}' imagination so busy as in framing 
responses from the etchings of his countenance; and where those 



196 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

carry me not deep enough, in flying from my own heart into his, 
and see what is natural for an ass to think (as well as a man) 
upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the 
classes of beings below me with whom I can do this. . 
With an ass I can commune forever. 

" ' Come, Honesty,' said I, seeing it was impracticable to pass 
betwixt him and the gate, ' art thou for coming in or going out? ' 

'' The ass twisted his head round to look up the street. 

" ' Well !' replied I, ' we'll wait a minute for thy driver.' 

" He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked wistfully the 
opposite way. 

" ' I understand thee perfectly,' answered I ; ' if thou takest a 
wrong step in this afi^air, he will cudgel thee to death. Well! a 
minute is but a minute ; and if it saves a fellow-creature a 
drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill-spent.' 

" He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went 
on, and in the little peevish contentions between hunger and* 
unsavoriness had dropped it out of his mouth half-a-dozen times, 
and had picked it up again. ' God help thee, Jack ! ' said I ; * thou 
hast a bitter breakfast on't; and many a bitter day's labor, and 
many a bitter blow, I fear, for its wages ! 'T is all, all bitterness 
to thee, whatever life is to others ! And now thy mouth, if one 
knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I dare say, as soot ' (for he had 
cast aside the stem), ' and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this 
world that will give thee a macaroon.' In saying this, I pulled out 
a paper of 'em, which I had just bought, and gave him one; and 
at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me that there 
was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing ho'^v an ass would 
eat a macaroon than of benevolence in giving him one, which 
presided in the act. 

" When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to come 
in. The poor beast was heavy loaded ; his legs seemed to tremble 
under him; he hung rather backwards, and as I pulled at his 
halter it broke in my hand. He looked up pensive in my face: 
' Don't thrash me with it; but if you will, you may!' ' If I do,' 
said I, ' I'll be d .' " 

A critic who refuses to see in this charming description 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 197 

wit, humor, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real 
sentiment, must be hard indeed to move and to please, A 
page or two further we come to a description not less 
beautiful, — a landscape and figures, deliciously painted 
by one who had the keenest enjoyment and the most 
tremulous sensibility: — 

" 'T was in the road between Nismes and Lunel, where is the 
best Muscatto wine in all France; the sun was set; they had done 
their work : the nymphs had tied up their hair afresh, and the 
swains were preparing for a carousal. My mule made a dead 
point. ' 'T is the pipe and tambourine,' said I : 'I never will 
argue a point with one of your family as long as I live;' so leap- 
ing off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch and t'other 
into that, ' I'll take a dance,' said I, ' so st«y you here.' 

" A sunburnt daughter of labor rose up from the group to meet 
me as I advanced towards them; her hair, which was of a dark 
chestnut approaching to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a 
single tress. 

" ' We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out both her hands, as 
if to offer them. ' And a cavalier you shall have,' said I, taking 
hold of both of them. ' We could not have done without you,' 
said she, letting go one hand, with self-taught politeness, and 
leading me up with the other. 

" A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, 
and to which he had added a tambourine of his own accord, ran 
sweetly over the prelude as he sat upon the bank. ' Tie me up 
this tress instantly,' said Nannette, putting a piece of string into 
my hand. It taught me to forget I was a stranger. The whole 
knot fell down, — we had been seven years acquainted. The 
youth struck the note upon the tambourine, his pipe followed, and 
off we bounded. 

" The sister of the youth, who had stolen her voice from heaven, 
sang alternately with her brother. 'Twas a Gascoigne rounde- 
lay: ' Fiza la join, fidon la tristessa.' The nymphs joined in 
unison, and their swains an octave below them. 



198 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

" Viva la joia was in Nannette's lips, -vi-va la joia in her eyes 
A transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt us. She 
looked amiable. Why could I not live and end my days thus ? 
'Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows! ' cried I, 'why could not 
a man sit down in the lap of content here, and dance and sing 
and say his prayers and go to heaven with this nut-brown maid ?' 
Capriciously did she bend her head on one side, and dance up 
insidious. ' Then 't is time to dance off,' quoth I." 

And with this pretty dance and chorus, the volume art- 
fully concludes. Even here one cannot give the w^hole 
description. There is not a page in Sterne's writing but 
has something that were better away, — a latent corrup- 
tion, a hint as of an impure presence. 

Some of that dreary double entendre may be attributed 
to freer times and manners than ours, but not all. The 
foul satyr's e5'es leer out of the leaves constantly; the last 
words the famous author wrote were bad and wicked ; the 
last lines the poor stricken wretch penned were for pity 
and pardon. I think of these past wTiters and of one who 
lives amongst us now, and am grateful for the innocent 
laughter and the sweet and unsullied page which the 
author of " David Copperfield " gives to my children. 

" Jete sur cette boule, 
Laid, chetif et souffrant; 
Etouffe dans la foule, 
Faute d'etre assez grand: 

" Une plainte touchante 
De ma bouche sortit. 
Le bon Dieu me dit: Chante, 
Chante, pauvre petit! 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 199 

" Chanter, ou je ra'abuse, 
Est ma tache ici-bas. 
Tous ceux qu'ainsi j'amuse, 
Ne m'aimeront-ils pas?" 

In those charming lines of Beranger, one may fancy 
described the career, the sufferings, the genius, the gentle 
nature of Goldsmith, and the esteem in which we hold 
him. Who of the millions whom he has amused does 
not love him ? To be the most beloved of English writers, 
what a title that is for a man! A wild youth, wayward, 
but full of tenderness and affection, quits the country vil- 
lage where his boj^hood has been passed in happy musing, 
in idle shelter, in fond longing to see the great world out 
of doors, and achieve name and fortune ; and after years 
of dire struggle and neglect and poverty, his heart turning 
back as fondly to his native place as it had longed eagerly 
for change when sheltered there, he writes a book and a 
poem, full of the recollections and feelings of home; he 
paints the friends and scenes of his youth, and peoples 
Auburn and Wakefield with remembrances of Lissoy. 
Wander he must, but he carries away a home-relic with 
him, and dies w^th it on his breast. His nature is truant; 
in repose it longs for change, — as on the journey it looks 
back for friends and quiet. He passes to-day in building 
an air-castle for to-morrow, or in writing yesterday's 
elegy; and he would fly away this hour, but that a cage, 
necessity, keeps him. What is the charm of his verse, of 
his style and humor? — his sweet regrets, his delicate 
compassion, his soft smile, his tremulous sympathy, the 
weakness which he owns? Your love for him is half pity. 
You come hot and tired from the day's battle, and this 



200 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

sweet minstrel sings to you. Who could harm the kind 
vagrant harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries 
no weapon save the harp on which he plays to you and 
wnth which he delights great and humble, j^oung and old, 
the captains in the tents or the soldiers round the fire, or 
the women and children in the villages, at whose porches 
he stops and sings his simple songs of love and beauty. 
With that sweet story of the " Vicar of Wakefield " he 
has found entry into every castle and every hamlet in 
Europe. Not one of us, however busy or hard, but once 
or twice in our lives has passed an evening with him, and 
undergone the charm of his delightful music. 

Goldsmith's father was no doubt the good Doctor 
Primrose, whom we all of us know. Swift was yet alive, 
when the little Oliver was born at Pallas, or Pallasmore, 
in the county of Longford, in Ireland. In 1730, two 
years after the child's birth, Charles Goldsmith removed 
his family to Lissoy, in the county Westmeath, — that 
sweet " Auburn " which every person who hears me has 
seen in fancy. Here the kind parson brought up his 
eight children ; and loving all the world, as his son says, 
fancied all the world loved him. He had a crowd of 
poor dependents besides those hungry children. He kept 
an open table, round which sat flatterers and poor friends, 
who laughed at the honest rector's many jokes, and ate 
the produce of his seventy acres of farm. Those who 
have seen an Irish house in the present day can fancy 
that one of Lissoy. The old beggar still has his allotted 
corner by the kitchen turf; the maimed old soldier still 
gets his potatoes and buttermilk; the poor cottier still 
asks his Honor's charity, and pra^'S God bless his Rever- 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 201 

ence for the sixpence ; the ragged pensioner still takes his 
place by right and sufferance. There is still a crowd in 
the kitchen, and a crowd round the parlor table; pro- 
fusion, confusion, kindness, poverty. If an Irishman 
comes to London to make his fortune, he has a half- 
dozen of Irish dependents who take a percentage of his 
earnings. The good Charles Goldsmith left but little 
provision for his hungry race when death summoned him ; 
and one of his daughters being engaged to a Squire of 
rather superior dignity, Charles Goldsmith impoverished 
the rest of his family to provide the girl with a dowry. 
The small-pox, which scourged all Europe at that time, 
and "Ravaged the roses off the cheeks of half the world, 
fell foul of poor little Oliver's face when the child was 
eight 5'ears old, and left him scarred and disfigured for his 
life. An old woman in his father's village taught him 
his letters, and pronounced him a dunce. Paddy Byrne, 
the hedge-schoolmaster, then took him in hand ; and from 
Paddy Byrne, he was transmitted to a clergyman at Elphin. 
When a child was sent to school in those days, the classic 
phrase was that he was placed under Mr. So-and-so's 
ferule. Poor little ancestors ! it is hard to think how ruth- 
lessly you were birched, and how much of needless whip- 
ping and tears our small forefathers had to undergo! A 
relative — kind Uncle Contarine — took the main charge 
of little Noll ; who went through his school-days right- 
eously doing as little work as he could, robbing orchards, 
playing at ball, and making his pocket-money fly about 
whenever fortune sent it to him. Everybody knows the 
story of that famous ** Mistake of a Night," when the 
young schoolboy, provided with a guinea and a nag, rode 



202 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

up to the " best house " in Ardagh, called for the land- 
lord's company over a bottle of wine at supper, and for a 
hot cake for breakfast in the morning, — and found, when 
he asked for the bill, that the best house was Squire 
Featherstone's, and not the inn for which he mistook it. 
Who does not know every story about Goldsmith ? That 
is a delightful and fantastic picture of the child dancing 
and capering about in the kitchen at home, when the old 
fiddler gibed at him for his ugliness, and called him iEsop ; 
and little Noll made his repartee of — 

"Heralds proclaim aloud this saying: 
See ^sop dancing and his monkey playing." 

One can fancy the queer, pitiful look of humor and ^Dpeal 
upon that little scarred face, the funny little dancing 
figure, the funny little brogue. In his life and his writ- 
ings, which are the honest expression of it, he is con- 
stantly bewailing that homely face and person ; anon he 
surveys them in the glass ruefully, and presently assumes 
the most comical dignity. He likes to deck out his little 
person in splendor and fine colors. He presented himself 
to be examined for ordination in a pair of scarlet breeches, 
and said honestly that he did not like to go into the Church 
because he was fond of colored clothes. When he tried 
to practise as a doctor, he got by hook or by crook a black 
velvet suit, and looked as big and grand as he could, and 
kept his hat over a patch on the old coat. In better days 
he bloomed out in plum-color, in blue silk, and in new 
velvet. For some of those splendors the heirs and assig- 
nees of Mr.,Filby, the tailor, have never been paid to this 
day; perhaps the kind tailor and his creditor have met 
and settled the little account in Hades. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 203 

They showed until lately a window at Trinity College, 
Dublin, on which the name of O. Goldsmith was engraved 
with a diamond. Whose diamond was it? Not the 
young sizar's, who made but a poor figure in that place 
of learning. He was idle, penniless, and fond of pleas- 
ure; he learned his way early to the pawnbroker's shop. 
He wrote ballads, they say, for the street-singers, who 
paid him a crown for a poem; and his pleasure was to 
steal out at night and hear his verses sung. He was 
chastised by his tutor for giving a dance in his rooms, 
and took the box on the ear so much to heart that he 
packed up his all, pawned his books and little property, 
and disappeared from college and family. He said he 
intended to go to America; but when his money was 
spent, the young prodigal came home ruefully, and the 
good folks there killed their calf (it was but a lean one) 
and welcomed him back. 

After college he hung about his mother's house, and 
lived for some years the life of a buckeen, — passed a 
month with this relation and that, a year with one patron, 
and a great deal of time at the public-house. Tired of 
this life, it was resolved that he should go to London, 
and study at the Temple; but he got no farther on the 
road to London and the woolsack than Dublin, where 
he gambled away the fifty pounds given him for his outfit, 
and whence he returned to the indefatigable forgiveness 
of home. Then he determined to be a doctor, and Uncle 
Contarine helped him to a couple of years at Edinburgh. 
Then from Edinburgh he felt that he ought to hear the 
famous professors of Leyden and Paris, and wrote most 
amusing pompous letters to his uncle about the great 



204 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Farheim, Du Petit, and Duhamel du Monceau, whose 
lectures he proposed to follow. If Uncle Contarfne 
believed those letters ; if Oliver's mother believed that story 
which the youth related, of his going to Cork with the 
purpose of embarking for America, of his having paid his 
passage-money and having sent his kit on board, of the 
anonymous captain sailing away with Oliver's valuable 
luggage in a nameless ship, never to return, — if Uncle 
Contarine and the mother at Ballymahon believed his 
stories, they must have been a very simple pair, as it was 
a very simple rogue indeed who cheated them. When the 
lad, after failing in his clerical examination, after failing 
in his plan for studying the law^, took leave of these projects 
and of his parents and set out for Edinburgh, he saw mother 
and uncle, and lazy Ballymahon, and green native turf 
and sparkling river for the last time. He w^as never to 
look on Old Ireland more, and only in fancy revisit her. 

" But me not destined such delights to share, 
My prime of Hfe in wandering spent and care, 
Impelled, with steps unceasing, to pursue 
Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view ; 
That like the circle bounding earth and skies 
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies: 
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, 
And find no spot of all the world my own." 

I spoke in a former lecture of that high courage which 
enabled Fielding, in spite of disease, remorse, and poverty, 
always to retain a cheerful spirit and to keep his manly 
benevolence and love of truth intact, — as if these treas- 
ures had been confided to him for the public benefit, and 
he was accountable to posterity for their honorable em- 
ploy; and a constancy equally happy and admirable I 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 205 

think was shown by Goldsmith, whose sweet and friendly- 
nature bloomed kindly always in the midst of a life's 
storm and rain and bitter weather. The poor fellow 
was never so friendless but he could befriend some one; 

5 never so pinched and wretched but he could give of his 
crust, and speak his w^ord of compassion. If he had but 
his flute left, he could give that, and make the children 
happy in the dreary London court. He could give the 
coals in that queer coal-scuttle we read of to his poor 

10 neighbor; he could give away his blankets in college to 
the poor widow, and w^arm himself as he best might in 
the feathers; he could pawn his coat, to save his land- 
lord from jail. When he was a school-usher he spent 
his earnings in treats for the boys, and the good-natured 

15 schoolmaster's wife said justly that she ought to keep 
Mr. Goldsmith's money as w^ell as the young gentle- 
men's. When he met his pupils in later life, nothing 
would satisfy the Doctor but he must treat them still. 
" Have you seen the print of me after Sir Joshua Rey- 

20 nolds?" he asked of one of his old pupils. "Not seen 
it! not bought it!- Sure, Jack, if your picture had been 
published, I'd not have been without it half-an-hour." 
His purse and his heart were everybody's, and his friends' 
as much as his own. When he was at the height of his 

23 reputation, and the Earl of Northumberland, going as 
Lord Lieutenant to Ireland, asked if he could be of any 
service to Doctor Goldsmith, Goldsmith recommended 
his brother and not himself to the great man. " My 
patrons," he gallantly said, " are the booksellers, and I 

.0 want no others." Hard patrons they were, and hard 
work he did; but he did not complain much. If in his 



206 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

early writings some bitter words escaped him, some allu- 
sions to neglect and poverty, he withdrew these expres- 
sions when his Works were republished, and better days 
seemed to open for him; and he did not care to com- 
plain that printer or publisher had overlooked his merit 
or left him poor. The Court face was turned from hon- 
est Oliver; the Court patronized Beattie. The fashion 
did not shine on him; fashion adored Sterne; fashion 
pronounced Kelly to be the great writer of comedy of his 
day. A little — not ill-humor, but plaintiveness — a lit- 
tle betrayal of wounded pride which he showed render 
him not the less amiable. The author of the " Vicar 
of Wakefield " had a right to protest when Newbery 
kept back the manuscript for two years ; had a right to 
be a little peevish with Sterne, — a little angry when 
Colman's actors declined their parts in his delightful com- 
edy, when the manager refused to have a scene painted 
for it and pronounced its damnation before hearing. He 
had not the great public with him ; but he had the noble 
Johnson and the admirable Reynolds and the great Gib- 
bon and the great Burke and the great Fox, — friends 
and admirers illustrious indeed, as famous as those who, 
fifty years before, sat round Pope's table. 

Nobody knows, and I dare say Goldsmith's buoyant 
temper kept no account of, all the pains which he endured 
during the early period of his literary career. Should 
any man of letters in our day have to bear up against 
such. Heaven grant he may come out of the period of 
misfortune with such a pure, kind heart as that which 
Goldsmith obstinately bore in his breast! The insults 
to which he had to submit are shocking to read of, — slan- 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 207 

der, contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignitj', perverting 
his commonest motives and actions. He had his share 
of these; and one's anger is roused at reading of them, 
as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child assaulted, 
at the notion that a creature so very gentle and weak, 
and full of love, should have had to suffer so. And he 
had worse than insult to undergo, — to own to fault, and 
deprecate the anger of ruffians. There is a letter of his 
extant to one Griffiths, a bookseller, in which poor Gold- 
smith is forced to confess that certain books sent by Grif- 
fiths are in the hands of a friend from whom Goldsmith 
had been forced to borrow money. *' He was wild, sir," 
Johnson said, speaking of Goldsmith to Boswell, with 
his great, wise benevolence and noble mercifulness of 
heart, — " Dr. Goldsmith was wild, sir; but he is so no 
more." Ah! if we pity the good and weak man w^ho 
suffers undeservedly, let us deal very gently with him from 
whom misery extorts not only tears but shame; let us 
think humbly and charitably of the human nature that 
suffers so sadly and falls so low. Whose turn may it be 
to-morrow? What weak heart, confident before trial, 
may not succumb under temptation invincible ? Cover the 
good man who has been vanquished, — cover his face and 
pass on. 

For the last half-dozen years of his life Goldsmith was 
far removed from the pressure of any ignoble necessity, 
and in the receipt, indeed, of a pretty large income from 
the booksellers, his patrons. Had he lived but a few 
years more, his public fame would have been as great as 
his private reputation, and he might have enjoyed alive 
a part of that esteem which his country has ever since 



208 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

paid to the vivid and versatile genius who has touched 
on almost every subject of literature, and touched noth- 
ing that he did not adorn. Except in rare instances, a 
man is known in our profession and esteemed as a skilful 
workman years before the lucky hit which trebles his usual 
gains, and stamps him a popular author. In the strength 
of his age and the dawn of his reputation, having for 
backers and friends the most illustrious literary men of his 
time, fame and prosperity might have been in store for 
Goldsmith had fate so willed, and at forty-six had not 
sudden disease carried him of¥. I say prosperity rather 
than competence; for it is probable that no sum could 
have put order into his affairs, or sufficed for his irre- 
claimable habits of dissipation. It must be remembered 
that he owed £2,000 when he died. " Was ever poet," 
Johnson asked, "so trusted before?" As has been the 
case with many another good fellow of his nation, his 
life w^as tracked and his substance wasted by crowds of 
hungry beggars and lazy dependents. If they came at a 
lucky time (and be sure they knew his affairs better than 
he did himself, and watched his pay-day), he gave them 
of his money; if they begged on empty-purse days, he 
gave them his promissory bills, or he treated them to a 
tavern where he had credit, or he obliged them with an 
order upon honest Mr. Filby for coats, — for which he 
paid as long as he could earn, and until the shears of 
Filby were to cut for him no more. Staggering under a 
load of debt and labor ; tracked by bailiffs and reproachful 
creditors ; running from a hundred poor dependents, whose 
appealing looks were perhaps the hardest of all pains for 
him to bear ; devising fevered plans for the morrow, new 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 209 

histories, new comedies, all sorts of new literary schemes; 
flying from all these into seclusion, and out of seclusion 
into pleasure, — at last, at five-and-forty, death seized 
him and closed his career. I have been many a time in 
the chambers in the Temple which w^re his, and passed 
up the staircase which Johnson and Burke and Rej^nolds 
trod to see their friend, their poet, their kind Gold- 
smith, — the stair on which the poor women sat weeping 
bitterly when they heard that greatest and most generous 
of all men was dead within the black-oak door. Ah! it 
was a different lot from that for which the poor fellov.'- 
sighed, when he wrote with heart yearning for home those 
most charming of all fond verses, in which he fancies he 
revisits Auburn : — 

" Here, as I take my solitary rounds 
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 
And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train, 
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 
In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs, — and God has given my share, — 
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown. 
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; 
To husband out life's taper at the close. 
And keep the flame from wasting by repose: 
I still had hopes — for pride attends us still — 
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, 
Around my fire an evening group to draw. 
And tell of all I felt and all I saw; 
And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue. 
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, — 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
Here to return, and die at home at last. 



210 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline! 
Retreats from care that never must be mine ! 
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
A youth of labor with an age of ease; 
Who quits a world where strong temptations try. 
And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
For him no wretches, born to work and weep. 
Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep ; 
No surly porter stands in guilty state 
To spurn imploring famine from the gate; 
But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
Whilst resignation gently slopes the way; 
And all his prospects brightening to the last, 
His heaven commences ere the world be past." 

In these verses, I need not say with what melody, with 
what touching truth, with what exquisite beauty of com- 
parison, as indeed in hundreds more pages of the writings 
of this honest soul, the whole character of the man is 
told, — his humble confession of faults and weakness; his 
pleasant little vanity, and desire that his village should 
admire him ; his simple scheme of good in which every- 
body was to be happy, — no beggar was to be refused his 
dinner, nobody in fact was to work much, — and he to 
be the harmless chief of the Utopia, and the monarch of 
the Irish Yvetot. He would have told again, and with- 
out fear of their failing, those famous jokes which had 
hung fire in London ; he would have talked of his great 
friends of the Club, — of my Lord Clare, my Lord 
Bishop, and my Lord Nugent; sure, he knew them inti- 
mately, and was hand-and-glove with some of the best 
men in town, — and he would have spoken of Johnson 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 211 

and of Burke, from Cork, and of Sir Joshua who had 
painted him ; and he would have told wonderful sly stories 
of Ranelagh and the Pantheon, and the masquerades at 
Madame Cornelys's; and he would have toasted, with a 
sigh, the Jessamy Bride, — the lovely Mary Horneck. 

The figure of that charming young lady forms one of 
the prettiest recollections of Goldsmith's life. She and 
her beautiful sister, — who married Bunbury, the grace- 
ful and humorous amateur artist of those days, when 
Gilray had but just begun to try his powers — wxre 
among the kindest and dearest of Goldsmith's many 
friends, cheered and pitied him, travelled abroad with him, 
made him welcome at their home, and gave him many a 
pleasant holiday. He bought his finest clothes to figure 
at their country-house at Barton ; he wrote them droll 
verses. They loved him, laughed at him, played him 
tricks, and made him happy. He asked for a loan from 
Garrick, and Garrick kindly supplied him, to enable him 
to go to Barton. But there were to be no more holidays, 
and only one brief struggle more, for poor Goldsmith. A 
lock of his hair was taken from the coffin and given to 
the Jessamy Bride. She lived quite into our time. Hazlitt 
saw her, an old lady but beautiful still, in Northcote's 
painting-room, who told the eager critic how proud she 
always was that Goldsmith had admired her. The younger 
Colman has left a touching reminiscence of him (vol. i. 
63, 64) :— 

" I was only five years old," he says, " when Goldsmith took 
me on his knee one evening whilst he was drinking coffee with my 
father, and began to play with me, — which amiable act I 
returned, with the ingratitude of a peevish brat, by giving him a 



212 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

very smart slap on the face: it must have been a tingler, for it 
left the marks of my spiteful paw on his cheek. This infantile 
outrage was followed by summary justice, and I was locked up by 
my indignant father in an adjoining room to undergo solitary 
imprisonment in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream most 
abominably, which was no bad step towards my liberation, since 
those who were not inclined to pity me might be likely to set me 
free for the purpose of abating a nuisance. 

" At length a generous friend appeared to extricate me from 
jeopardy; and that generous friend was no other than the man I 
had so wantonly molested by assault and battery. It was the 
tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand 
and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red 
from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed as he 
fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. Goldsmith seized 
the propitious moment of returning good-humor, when he put 
down the candle and began to conjure. He placed three hats, 
which happened to be in the room, and a shilling under each: 
the shillings, he told me, were England, France, and Spain. ' Hey, 
presto cockalorum!' cried the Doctor; and lo, on uncovering the 
shillings, which had been dispersed each beneath a separate hat, 
they were all found congregated under one ! I was no politician 
at five years old, and therefore might not have wondered at the 
sudden revolution which brought England, France, and Spain all 
under one crown; but as also I was no conjuror, it amazed me 
beyond measure. . . . From that time, whenever the Doctor 
came to visit my father, ' I plucked his gown to share the good 
man's smile;' a game at romps constantly ensued, and we were 
always cordial friends and merry playfellows. Our unequal com- 
panionship varied somewhat as to sports as I grew older; but it 
did not last long: my senior playmate died in his forty-fifth year, 
when I had attained my eleventh. ... In all the numerous 
accounts of his virtues and foibles, his genius and absurdities, his 
knowledge of nature and ignorance of the world, his ' compassion 
for another's woe' was always predominant; and my trivial story 
of his humoring a froward child weighs but as a feather in the 
recorded scale of his benevolence." 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 213 

Think of him reckless, thriftless, vam, if you like, — but 
merciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pity. He 
passes out of our life, and goes to render his account 
beyond it. Think of the poor pensioners weeping at his 

-, grave; think of the noble spirits that admired and deplored 
him ; think of the righteous pen that wrote his epitaph, 
and of the wonderful and unanimous response of affec- 
tion with which the world has paid back the love he gave 
it. His humor delighting us still, his song fresh and beau- 

10 tiful as when first he charmed w^ith it, his words in all 
our mouths, his very weaknesses beloved and familiar, — 
his benevolent spirit seems still to smile upon us, to do 
gentle kindnesses, to succor with sweet charity ; to soothe, 
caress, and forgive; to plead w^ith the fortunate for the 

15 unhappy and the poor. 

His name is the last in the list of those men of humor 
who have formed the themes of the discourses which you 
have heard so kindly. 

Long before I had ever hoped for such an audience, 
20 or dreamed of the possibility of the good fortune which 
has brought me so many friends, I was at issue with some 
of my literary brethren upon a point w^hich they held from 
tradition, I think, rather than experience, — that our pro- 
fession was neglected in this country, and that men of 
25 letters were ill received and held in slight esteem. It 
would hardly be grateful of me now to alter my old 
opinion that wx do meet with good-will and kindness, 
w^ith generous helping hands in the time of our necessity, 
with cordial and friendly recognition. What claim had 
30 any one of these of whom I have been speaking, but 



214 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

genius? What return of gratitude, fame, affection, did 
it not bring to all? What punishment befell those who 
were unfortunate among them, but that w^hich follows 
reckless habits and careless lives? For these faults a w^it 
must suffer like the dullest prodigal that ever ran in debt. 
He must pay the tailor if he wears the coat; his children 
must go in rags if he spends his mone}^ at the tavern; he 
cannot come to London and be made Lord Chancellor if 
he stops on the road and gambles away his last shilling 
at Dublin. And he must pay the social penalty of these 
follies too, and expect that the world will shun the man 
of bad habits, that women will avoid the man of loose 
life, that prudent folks will close their doors as a pre- 
caution, and before a demand should be made on their 
pockets by the needy prodigal. With what difficulty had 
any one of these men to contend, save that eternal and 
mechanical one of want of means and lack of capital, and 
of w^hich thousands of young lawj^ers, young doctors, young 
soldiers and sailors, of inventors, manufacturers, shopkeep- 
ers, have to complain ? Hearts as brave and resolute as ever 
beat in the breast of any w^it or poet sicken and break 
daily in the vain endeavor and unavailing struggle against 
life's difficulty. Do not we see daily ruined inventors, 
gray-haired midshipmen, balked heroes, blighted curates, 
barristers pining a hungry life out in chambers, the attor- 
neys never mounting to their garrets, whilst scores of them 
are rapping at the door of the successful quack below? 
If these suffer, who is the author that he should be exempt? 
Let us bear our ills with the same constancy with which 
others endure them, accept our manly part in life, hold 
our own, and ask no more. I can conceive of no kings 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 215 

or laws causing or curing Goldsmith's improvidence, or 
Fielding's fatal love of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania 
for running races with the constable. You never can outrun 
that sure-footed officer, not by any swiftness or by dodges 
devised by any genius, however great ; and he carries off the 
Tatler to the sponging-house, or taps the Citizen of the 
World on the shoulder, as he would any other mortal. 

Does society look down on a man because he is an 
author? I suppose if people want a buffoon they tolerate 
him only in so far as he is amusing; it can hardly be 
expected that they should respect him as an equal. Is 
there to be a guard of honor provided for the author of 
the last new novel or poem? How long is he to reign, 
and keep other potentates out of possession? He retires, 
grumbles, and prints a lamentation that literature is 
despised. If Captain A. is left out of Lady B.'s parties, he 
does not state that the army is despised. If Lord C. no 
longer asks Counsellor D. to dinner. Counsellor D. does not 
announce that the bar is insulted. He is not fair to society 
if he enters it with this suspicion hankering about him. If 
he is doubtful about his reception, how hold up his head 
honestly, and look frankly in the face that world about 
which he is full of suspicion? Is he place-hunting, and 
thinking in his mind that he ought to be made an Ambassa- 
dor like Prior, or a Secretary of State like Addison, — his 
pretence of equality falls to the ground at once ; he is schem- 
ing for a patron, not shaking the hand of a friend, when 
he meets the world. Treat such a man as he deserves; 
laugh at his buffoonery, and give him a dinner and a bon 
jour; laugh at his self-sufficiency and absurd assumptions 
of superiority and his equally ludicrous airs of martyr- 



216 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

dom; laugh at his flattery and his scheming, and buy it, 
if it's worth the having. Let the wag have his dinner and 
the hireling his pay, if you want him, and make a pro- 
found bow to the grand honime incompris and the boister- 
ous martyr, and show him the door. The great world, the 
great aggregate experience, has its good sense as it has its 
good humor. It detects a pretender, as it trusts a loyal 
heart. It is kind in the main : how should it be other- 
wise than kind, when it is so wise and clear-headed? To 
any literary man who says, '' It despises my profession," 
I say, with all my might. No, no, no! It may pass over 
your individual case, — how many a brave fellow has 
failed in the race and perished unknown in the struggle ! 
— but it treats you as you merit in the main. If you serve 
it, it is not unthankful ; if you please it, it is pleased ; if 
you cringe to it, it detects you, and scorns you if you are 
mean ; it returns your cheerfulness with its good humor, 
it deals not ungenerously with your weaknesses, it recog- 
nizes most kindly your merits, it gives you a fair place 
and fair play. To any one of those men of whom we 
have spoken was it in the main ungrateful? A king might 
refuse Goldsmith a pension, as a publisher might keep his 
masterpiece and the delight of all the world in his desk 
for two years ; but it was mistake, and not ill-will. Noble 
and illustrious names of Swift and Pope and Addison ; 
dear and honored memories of Goldsmith and Fielding! 
kind friends, teachers, benefactors! who shall say that our 
country, which continues to bring j'ou such an unceasing 
tribute of applause, admiration, love, sympathy, does not 
do honor to the literary calling in the honor which it 
bestows upon youf 



LECTURE THE SEVENTH 

CHARITY AND HUMOR 

Several charitable ladles of this city, to some of whom 
I am under great personal obligation, having thought that 
a lecture of mine would advance a benevolent end which 
they had in view, I have preferred, in place of delivering 
a discourse, which many of my hearers no doubt know 
already, upon a subject merely literary or biographical, 
to put together a few thoughts which may serve as a sup- 
plement to the former lectures, if you like, and which 
have this at least in common with the kind purpose which 
assembles you here, that they rise out of the same occa- 
sion, and treat of charity. 

Besides contributing to our stock of happiness, to our 
harmless laughter and amusement, to our scorn for false- 
hood and pretension, to our righteous hatred of hypocrisy, 
to our education in the perception of truth, our love of 
honesty, our knowledge of life, and shrewd guidance 
through the world, have not our humorous writers, our 
gay and kind week-day preachers, done much in support 
of that holy cause which has assembled you in this place, 
and which you are all abetting, — the cause of love and 
charity ; the cause of the poor, the weak, and the unhappy ; 
the sweet mission of love and tenderness, and peace and 
good-w^ill towards men ? That same theme which is urged 
upon you by the eloquence and example of good men to 
whom you are delighted listeners on Sabbath-days, is 

217 



21S ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

taught in his way and according to his power by the 
humorous writer, the commentator on every-day life and 
manners. 

And as you are here assembled for a charitable purpose, 
giving your contributions at the door to benefit deserving 
people w^ho need them without, I like to hope and think 
that the men of our calling have done something in aid of 
the cause of charity, and have helped, with kind words 
and kind thoughts at least, to confer happiness and to do 
good. If the humorous writers claim to be week-day 
preachers, have they conferred any benefit by their ser- 
mons? Are people happier, better, better disposed to their 
neighbors, more inclined to do works of kindness, to love, 
forbear, forgive, pity, after reading in Addison, in Steele, 
in Fielding, in Goldsmith, in Hood, in Dickens? I hope 
and believe so, and fancy that in writing they are also 
acting charitably, contributing, with the means which 
Heaven supplies them, to forward the end which brings 
you too together. 

A love of the human species is a very vague and indefi- 
nite kind of virtue, sitting very easily on a man, not con- 
fining his actions at all, shining in print, or exploding in 
paragraphs, after which efforts of benevolence, the philan- 
thropist is sometimes said to go home, and be no better 
than his neighbors. Tartuffe and Joseph Surface, Stig- 
gins and Chadband, w4io are always preaching fine senti- 
ments, and are no more virtuous than hundreds of those 
whom they denounce and whom they cheat, are fair objects 
of mistrust and satire; but their hypocrisy, the homage, 
according to the old saying, which vice pays to virtue, 
has this of good in it, that its fruits are good. A man 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 219 

may preach good morals, though he may be himself but a 
lax practitioner; a Pharisee may put pieces of gold into 
the charity-plate out of mere hypocrisy and ostentation, 
but the bad man's gold feeds the widow and the father- 
less as well as the good man's. The butcher and baker 
must needs look, not to motives, but to money, in return 
for their wares. 

I am not going to hint that we of the literary calling 
resemble Monsieur Tartuf^e or Monsieur Stiggins, though 
there may be such men in our body, as there are in all. 

A literary man of the humoristic turn is pretty sure to 
be of a philanthropic nature, to have a great sensibility, 
to be easily moved to pain, or pleasure, keenly to appre- 
ciate the varieties of temper of people round about him, 
and sympathize in their laughter, love, amusement, tears. 
Such a man is philanthropic, man-loving by nature, as 
another is irascible, or red-haired, or six feet high. And 
so I would arrogate no particular merit to literary men for 
the possession of this faculty of doing good which some 
of them enjoy. It costs a gentleman no sacrifice to be 
benevolent on paper; and the luxury of indulging in the 
most beautiful and brilliant sentiments never makes any 
man a penny the poorer. A literary man is no better than 
another, as far as my experience goes; and a man writing 
a book, no better nor no worse than one who keeps 
accounts in a ledger, or follows any other occupation. Let 
us, however, give him credit for the good, at least, w^hich 
he is the means of doing, as we give credit to a man with a 
million for the hundred which he puts into the plate at a 
charity-sermon. He never misses them. He has made 
them in a moment by a lucky speculation, and parts with 



220 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

them, knowing that he has an almost endless balance at his 
bank, whence he can call for more. But in esteeming the 
benefaction, we are grateful to the benefactor, too, some- 
what; and so of men of genius, richly endowed, and lavish 
in parting with their mind's wealth, we may view them at 
least kindly and favorably, and be thankful for the bounty 
of which Providence has made them the dispensers. 

I have said myself somewhere, I do not know with what 
correctness (for definitions never are complete), that 
humor is wit and love ; I am sure, at any rate, that the best 
humor is that w^hich contains most humanity, that which 
is flavored throughout wnth tenderness and kindness. This 
love does not demand constant utterance or actual expres- 
sion, as a good father, in conversation with his children or 
w^ife, is not perpetually embracing them, or making pro- 
testations of his love ; as a lover in the society of his mistress 
is not, at least as far as I am led to believe, forever squeez- 
ing her hand, or sighing in her ear, "My soul's darling, I 
adore 3'ou ! " He shows his love by his conduct, by his 
fidelity, by his watchful desire to make the beloved person 
happy; it lightens from his ejes when she appears, though 
he may not speak it; it fills his heart when she is present 
or absent ; influences all his words and actions ; suffuses his 
whole being; it sets the father cheerily to work through 
the long day, supports him through the tedious labor of 
the w^eary absence or journey, and sends him happy home 
again, yearning tow^ards the ^vife and children. This kind 
of love is not a spasm, but a life. It fondles and caresses 
at due seasons, no doubt ; but the fond heart is ahvays beat- 
ing fondly and truly, though the wife is not sitting hand- 
in-hand with him, or the children hugging at his knee. 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 221 

And so with a loving humor: I think, it is a genial 
writer's habit of being; it is the kind, gentle spirit's way 
of looking out on the world — that sweet friendliness 
which fills his heart and his style. You recognize it, 
even though there may not be a single point of wit, or 
a single pathetic touch in the page ; though you may not 
be called upon to salute his genius by a laugh or a tear. 
That collision of ideas, which provokes the one or the 
other, must be occasional. They must be like papa's 
embraces, which I spoke of anon, who only delivers them 
now and again, and cannot be expected to go on kissing 
the children all night. And so the writer's jokes and 
sentiment, his ebullitions of feelings, his outbreaks of high 
spirits, must not be too frequent. One tires of a page of 
which every sentence sparkles with points, of a sentimen- 
talist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes or 
your own. One suspects the genuineness of the tear, the 
naturalness of the humor ; these ought to be true and 
manly in a man, as everything else in his life should be 
manly and true ; and he loses his dignity by laughing or 
wTeping out of place, or too often. 

When the Reverend Lawrence Sterne begins to senti- 
mentalize over the carriage in Monsieur Dessein's court- 
yard, and pretends to squeeze a tear out of a rickety 
old shandrydan ; when, presently, he encounters the dead 
donkey on his road to Paris, and snivels over that asinine 
corpse, I say: " Away you drivelling quack: do not palm 
off these grimaces of grief upon simple folks who know 
no better, and cry misled by your hypocrisy." Tears are 
sacred. The tributes of kind hearts to misfortune, the 
mites which gentle souls drop into the collections made 



222 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

for God's poor and unhappy, are not to be tricked out 
of them by a whimpering hypocrite, handing round a 
begging-box for your compassion, and asking your pity 
for a lie. When that same man tells me of Le Fevre's 
illness and Uncle Toby's charity; of the noble at Rennes 
coming home and reclaiming his sword, I thank him for 
the generous emotion which, springing genuinely from 
his own heart, has caused mine to admire benevolence 
and sympathize with honor; and to feel love, and kind- 
ness, and pity. 

If I do not love Swift, as, thank God, I do not, how- 
ever immensely I may admire him, it is because I revolt 
from the man who placards himself as a professional hater 
of his own kind ; because he chisels his savage indigna- 
tion on his tomb-stone, as if to perpetuate his protest 
against being born of our race — the suffering, the w^eak, 
the erring, the wicked, if you will, but still the friendly, 
the loving children of God our Father: it is because, as 
I read through Swift's dark volumes, I never find the 
aspect of nature seems to delight him ; the smiles of chil- 
dren to please him ; the sight of wadded love to soothe 
him. I do not remember in any line of his writing a 
passing allusion to a natural scene of beauty. When he 
speaks about the families of his comrades and brother 
clergymen, it is to assail them with gibes and scorn, and 
to laugh at them brutally for being fathers and for being 
poor. He does mention in the Journal to Stella, a sick ^ 
child, to be sure — a child of Lady Masham, that was ill j 
of the small-pox — but then it is to confound the brat | 
for being ill, and the mother for attending to it, when j 
she should have been busy about a court intrigue, in 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 223 

which the Dean was deeply engaged. And he alludes to 
a suitor of Stella's, and a match she might have made, 
and would have made, very likely, with an honorable 
and faithful and attached man, Tisdall, who loved her, 
and of whom Swift speaks, in a letter to this lady, in 
language so foul that you would not bear to hear it. In 
treating of the good the humorists have done, of the love 
and kindness they have taught and left behind them, it 
it not of this one I dare speak. Heaven help the lonely 
misanthrope! be kind to that multitude of sins, with so 
little charity to cover them! 

Of Mr. Congreve's contributions to the English stock 
of benevolence, I do not speak ; for, of any moral legacy 
to posterity, I doubt whether that brilliant man ever 
thought at all. He had some money, as I have told ; 
every shilling of which he left to his friend the Duchess 
of Marlborough, a lady of great fortune and the highest 
fashion. He gave the gold of his brains to persons of 
fortune and fashion, too. There is no more feeling in 
his comedies, than in as many books of Euclid. He 
no more pretends to teach love for the poor, and good- 
will for the unfortunate, than a dancing-master does; he 
teaches pirouettes and flic-flacs; and how to bow to a lady, 
and to walk a minuet. In his private life Congreve was 
immensely liked — more so than any man of his age, 
almost; and to have been so liked, must have been kind 
and good-natured. His good-nature bore him through 
extreme bodily ills and pain, with uncommon cheerful- 
ness and courage. Being so gay, so bright, so popular, 
such a grand seigneur, be sure he was kind to those 
about him, generous to his dependents, serviceable to his 



224 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

friends. Society does not like a man so long as it liked 
Congreve, unless he is likeable ; it finds out a quack very 
soon ; it scorns a poltroon or a curmudgeon ; we may be 
certain that this man was brave, good-tempered, and lib- 
eral ; so, very likely, is Monsieur Pirouette, of whom we 
spoke; he cuts his capers, he grins, bow^s, and dances 
to his fiddle. In private, he may have a hundred virtues; 
in public, he teaches dancing. His business is cotillions, 
not ethics. 

As much may be said of those charming and lazy Epi- 
cureans, Gay and Prior, sweet lyric singers, comrades of 
Anacreon, and disciples of love and the bottle. " Is there 
any moral shut within the bosom of a rose?" sings our 
great Tennyson. Does a nightingale preach from a bough, 
or the lark from his cloud? Not knowingly; yet we 
may be grateful, and love larks and roses, and the flower- 
crowned minstrels, too, who laugh and w^ho sing. 

Of Addison's contributions to the charity of the world, 
I have spoken before, in trying to depict that noble figure ; 
and say now, as then, that we should thank him as one 
of the greatest benefactors of that vast and immeasur- 
ably spreading family which speaks our common tongue. 
Wherever it is spoken, there is no man that does not feel, 
and understand, and use the noble English word " gentle- 
man." And there is no man that teaches us to be gentle- 
men better than Joseph Addison. Gentle in our bearing 
through life ; gentle and courteous to our neighbor ; gentle 
in dealing with his follies and weaknesses ; gentle In treat- 
ing his opposition ; deferential to the old ; kindly to the 
poor, and those below us in degree; for people above us 
and below us we must find, in whatever hemisphere we 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 225 

dwell, whether kings or presidents govern us; and in no 
republic or monarchy that I know of, is a citizen exempt 
from the tax of befriending poverty and weakness, of 
respecting age, and of honoring his father and mother. 
It has just been whispered to me — I have not been three 
months in the country, and, of course, cannot venture to 
express an opinion of my own — that, in regard to pay- 
ing this latter tax of respect and honor to age, some very 
few of the republican youths are occasionally a little remiss. 
I have heard of young Sons of Freedom publishing their 
Declaration of Independence before they could well spell 
it; and cutting the connection between father and mother 
before they had learned to shave. My own time of life 
having been stated, by various enlightened organs of pub- 
lic opinion, at almost any figure from fort}^-five to sixty, 
I cheerfully own that I belong to the fogey interest, and 
ask leave to rank in, and plead for, that respectable class. 
Now a gentleman can but be a gentleman, in Broadway 
or the backwoods, in Pali-Mall or California; and w^here 
and whenever he lives, thousands of miles away in the 
wilderness, or hundreds of years hence, I am sure that 
reading the writings of this true gentleman, this true 
Christian, this noble Joseph Addison, must do him good. 
He may take Sir Roger de Coverley to the diggings with 
him, and learn to be gentle and good-humored, and 
urbane, and friendly in the midst of that struggle in w^hich 
his life is engaged. I take leave to say that the most bril- 
liant youth of this city may read over this delightful 
memorial of a by-gone age, of fashions long passed away; 
of manners long since changed and modified ; of noble 
gentlemen, and a great, and a brilliant and polished soci- 



226 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

ety; and find in it much to charm and polish, to refine 
and instruct him — a courteousness, which can be out of 
place at no time, and under no flag; a politeness and 
simplicit)^, a truthful manhood, a gentle respect and defer- 
ence, which may be kept as the unbought grace of life, 
and cheap defence of mankind, long after its old artificial 
distinctions, after periwigs, and small-sw^ords, and ruf- 
fles, and red-heeled shoes, and titles, and stars and garters 
have passed aw^ay. I will tell you when I have been 
put in mind of tw^o of the finest gentlemen books bring 
us any mention of. I mean our books (not books of his- 
tory, but books of humor). I will tell you when I have 
been put in mind of the courteous gallantry of the noble 
knight, Sir Roger de Coverley of Coverley Manor, of 
the noble Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha: here in 
your own omnibus-carriages and railway-cars, when I 
have seen a woman step in, handsome or not, well dressed 
or not, and a workman in hob-nail shoes, or a dandy in 
the height of the fashion, rise up and give her his place. 
I think Mr. Spectator, with his short face, if he had 
seen such a deed of courtesy, would have smiled a sweet 
smile to the doer of that gentleman-like action, and have 
made him a low bow from under his great periwig, and 
have gone home and written a pretty paper about him. 

I am sure Dick Steele would have hailed him, were 
he dandy or mechanic, and asked him to a tavern to 
share a bottle, or perhaps half a dozen. Mind, I do not 
set down the five last flasks to Dick's score for virtue, 
and look upon them as works of the most questionable 
supererogation. 

Steele, as a literary benefactor to the world's charity. 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 227 

must rank very high indeed, not merely from his givings, 
which were abundant, but because his endowments are 
prodigiously increased in value since he bequeathed them, 
as the revenues of the lands, bequeathed to our Foundling 
Hospital at London, by honest Captain Coram, its founder, 
are immensely enhanced by the houses since built upon 
them. Steele was the founder of sentimental writing in 
English, and how the land has been since occupied, and 
what hundreds of us have laid out gardens and built up 
tenements on Steele's ground ! Before his time, readers 
or hearers were never called upon to cry except at a - 
tragedy; and compassion was not expected to express itself 
otherwise than in blank verse, or for personages much 
lower in rank than a dethroned monarch, or a widowed* 
or a jilted empress. He stepped off the high-heeled 
cothurnus, and came down into common life; he held out 
his great hearty arms, and embraced us all ; he had a bow 
for all women, a kiss for all children, a shake of the hand 
for all men, high or low; he show^ed us Heaven's sun 
shining every day on quiet homes — not gilded palaee- 
roofs only, or court processions, or heroic warriors fight- 
ing for princesses and pitched battles. He took away 
comedy from behind the fine lady's alcove, or the screen 
where the libertine was watching her. He ended all that 
wretched business of wives jeering at their husbands, or 
rakes laughing wives, and husbands too, to scorn. That 
miserable, rouged, tawdry, sparkling, hollow-hearted com- 
edy of the Restoration fled before him, and, like the 
wicked spirit in the fairy-books, shrank, as Steele let the 
daylight in, and shrieked, and shuddered, and vanished. 
The stage of humorists has been common-life ever since 



228 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Steele's and Addison's time — the joys and griefs, the 
aversions and sympathies, the laughter and tears of nature. 
And here, coming off the stage, and throwing aside the 
motley-habit, or satiric disguise, in which he had before 
entertained you, mingling with the world, and wearing 
the same coat as his neighbor, the humorist's service 
became straightway immensely more available; his means 
of doing good infinitely multiplied ; his success, and the 
esteem in which he was held, proportionately increased. 
It requires an effort, of which all minds are not capable, 
to understand " Don Quixote" ; children and common peo- 
ple still read " Gulliver " for the story merely. Many more 
persons are sickened by "Jonathan Wild " than can compre- 
hend the satire of it. Each of the great men who wrote 
those books was speaking from behind the satiric mask I 
anon mentioned. Its distortions appal many simple spec- 
tators; its settled sneer or laugh is unintelligible to thou- 
sands, who have not the wit to interpret the meaning of 
the vizored satirist preaching from within. Many a man 
was at fault about Jonathan Wild's greatness, who could 
feel and relish AUworthy's goodness in " Tom Jones," and 
Doctor Harrison's in " Amelia," and dear Parson Adams, 
and Joseph Andrews. We love to read ; we may grow 
ever so old, but we love to read of them still — of love 
and beauty, of frankness, and bravery, and generosity. 
We hate hypocrites and cowards; we long to defend 
oppressed innocence, and to soothe and succor gentle 
women and children. We are glad when vice is foiled 
and rascals punished ; we lend a foot to kick Blifil down 
stairs; and as we attend the brave bridegroom to his 
wedding on the happy marriage day, we ask the grooms- 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 229 

man's privilege to salute the blushing cheek of Sophia. 
A lax morality in many a vital point I own in Fielding, 
but a great hearty sympathy and benevolence, a great 
kindness for the poor; a great gentleness and pity for 
the unfortunate, a great love for the pure and good — 
these are among the contributions to the charity of the 
world with which this erring but noble creature endowed it. 

As for Goldsmith, if the youngest and most unlettered 
person here has not been happy with the family at Wake- 
field; has not rejoiced when Olivia returned, and been 
thankful for her forgiveness and restoration ; has not 
laughed with delighted good humor over Moses's gross of 
green spectacles; has not loved with all his heart the 
good Vicar, and that kind spirit which created these 
charming figures, and devised the beneficent fiction which 
speaks to us so tenderly — what call is there for me to 
speak? In this place, and on this occasion, remembering 
these men, I claim from you your sympathy for the good 
they have done, and for the sweet charity which they 
have bestowed on the world. 

When humor joins with rhythm and music, and appears 
in song, its influence is irresistible, its charities are count- 
less; it stirs the feelings to love, peace, friendship, as 
scarce any moral agent can. The songs of Beranger are 
hymns of love and tenderness ; I have seen great whis- 
kered Frenchmen warbling the " Bonne Vieille," the " Sol- 
dats au pas, au pas " ; with tears rolling down their mus- 
taches. At a Burns festival, I have seen Scotchmen 
singing Burns, while the drops twinkled on their fur- 
rowed cheeks ; while each rough hand was flung out to 
grasp its neighbor's; while early scenes and sacred recol- 



230 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

lections, and dear and delightful memories of the past 
came rushing back at the sound of the familiar words and 
music, and the softened heart was full of love, and friend- 
ship^ and home. Humor! if tears are the alms of gentle 
spirits, and may be counted, as sure they may, among 
the sweetest of life's charities — of that kindly sensibility, 
and sweet sudden emotion, w^hich exhibits itself at the 
eyes, I know no such provocative as humor. It is an 
irresistible sympathiser ; it surprises you into compassion : 
5"0u are laughing and disarmed, and suddenly forced into 
tears. I heard a humorous balladist not long since, a 
minstrel with wool on his head, and an ultra-Ethiopian 
complexion, w^ho performed a negro ballad, that I con- 
fess moistened these spectacles in the most unexpected 
manner. They have gazed at dozens of tragedy-queens, 
dying on the stage, and expiring in appropriate blank 
verse, and I never wanted to wipe them. They have 
looked up, with deep respect be it said, at many scores 
of clergymen in pulpits, and without being dimmed ; and 
behold a vagabond with a corked face and a banjo sings 
a little song, strikes a wild note w^hich sets the whole 
heart thrilling with happy pity. Humor! humor is the 
mistress of tears ; she knows the way to the fons lachry- 
marum, strikes in dry and rugged places with her enchant- 
ing wand, and bids the fountain gush and sparkle. She 
has refreshed myriads more from her natural springs than 
every tragedy has watered from her pompous old urn. 

Popular humor, and especially modern popular humor, 
and the waiters, its exponents, are always kind and chival- 
rous, taking the side of the weak against the strong. In 
our plays, and books, and entertainments for the lower 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 231 

classes in England, I scarce remember a story or theatrical 
piece in which a wicked aristocrat is not bepummelled by 
a dashing young champion of the people. There was a 
book which had an immense popularity in England, and 
I believe has been greatly read here, in which the mys- 
teries of the Court of London were said to be unveiled 
by a gentleman, who I suspect knows about as much about 
the Court of London as he does of that of Pekin. Years 
ago I treated m^^self to sixpenny-worth of this performance 
at a railway station, and found poor dear George the 
Fourth, our late most religious and gracious king, occu- 
pied in the most flagitious designs against the tradesmen's 
families in his metropolitan city. A couple of years after, 
I took sixpenny- worth more of the same delectable his- 
tory: George the Fourth was still at work, still ruining 
the peace of tradesmen's families; he had been at it for 
two whole years, and a bookseller at the Brighton sta- 
tion told me that this book was by many, many times the 
most popular of all periodical tales then published, because, 
says he, "it lashes the aristocracy!" Not long since, I 
went to two penny-theatres in London ; immense eager 
crowds of people thronged the buildings, and the vast 
masses thrilled and vibrated with the emotion produced 
by the piece represented on the stage, and burst into* 
applause or laughter, such as many a polite actor would 
sigh for in vain. In both these pieces there was a wicked 
lord kicked out of the window — there is always a wicked 
lord kicked out of the window. First piece: — " Domes- 
tic drama — Thrilling interest ! — Weaver's family in dis- 
tress ! — Fanny gives away her bread to little Jacky, and 
starves ! — Enter wicked lord : tempts Fanny with offer 



232 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

of diamond necklace, champagne suppers, and coach to 
ride in ! — Enter sturdy blacksmith. — Scuffle between 
blacksmith and aristocratic minion : exit wicked lord out 
of the window." Fanny, of course, becomes Mrs. Black- 
smith. 

The second piece was a nautical drama, also of thrill- 
ing interest, consisting chiefly of hornpipes, and acts of 
most tremendous oppression on the part of certain earls 
and magistrates towards the people. Two wicked lords 
were in this piece the atrocious scoundrels: one aristocrat, 
a deep-dyed villain, in short duck trousers and Berlin 
cotton gloves; while the other minion of wealth enjoyed 
an eye-glass with a blue ribbon, and w^hisked about the 
stage with a penny cane. Having made away with Fanny 
Forester's lover, Tom Bowling, by means of a press-gang, 
they meet her all alone on a common, and subject her to 
the most opprobrious language and behavior: "Release 
me, villains! " says Fanny, pulling a brace of pistols out 
of her pockets, and crossing them over her breast so as to 
cover wicked lord to the right, wicked lord to the left ; 
and they might have remained in that position ever so 
much longer (for the aristocratic rascals had pistols too), 
had not Tom Bowling returned from sea at the very nick 
of time, armed with a great marlinspike, with which — 
whack! whack! down goes wicked lord, No. 1 — wicked 
lord. No. 2. Fanny rushes into Tom's arms with a hys- 
terical shriek, and I dare say they marry, and are very 
happy ever after. Popular fun is always kind : it is the 
champion of the humble against the great. In all popular 
parables, it is Little Jack that conquers, and the Giant 
that topples down. I think our popular authors are rather 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 233 

hard upon the great folks ! Well, well ! their lordships 
have all the money, and can afford to be laughed at. 

In our days, in England, the importance of the humor- 
ous preacher has prodigiously increased ; his audiences are 
enormous; every week or month his happy congregations 
flock to him ; they never tire of such sermons. I believe 
my friend Mr. Punch is as popular to-day as he has been 
any day since his birth ; I believe that Mr. Dickens's 
readers are even more numerous than they have ever been 
since his unrivalled pen commenced to delight the world 
with its humor. We have among us other literary par- 
ties; we have " Punch," as I have said, preaching from 
his booth ; we have a Jerrold party very numerous, and 
faithful to that acute thinker and distinguished wit ; and 
we have also — it must be said, and it is still to be 
hoped — a "Vanity Fair" party, the author of which 
work has lately been described by the London " Times " 
newspaper as a writer of considerable parts, but a dreary 
misanthrope, who sees no good anywhere, who sees the 
sky above him green, I think, instead of blue, and only 
miserable sinners round about him. So we are ; so is 
every writer and every reader I ever heard of; so was 
every being who ever trod this earth, save One. I can- 
not help telling the truth as I view it, and describing what 
I see. To describe it otherwise than it seems to me 
would be falsehood in that calling in which it has pleased 
Heaven to place me ; treason to that conscience which 
says that men are weak ; that truth must be told ; that 
fault must be owned ; that pardon must be prayed for, 
and that love reigns supreme over all. 

I look back at the good which of late years the kind 



234 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

English humorists have done; and if you are pleased to 
rank the present speaker among that class, I own to an 
honest pride at thinking what benefits society has derived 
from men of our calling. That " Song of the Shirt," 
which " Punch " first published, and the noble, the suf- 
fering, the melancholy, the tender Hood sang, may surely 
rank as a great act of charity to the world, and call from 
it its thanks and regard for its teacher and benefactor. 
That astonishing poem, which you all of you know, of 
the *' Bridge of Sighs," who can read it without tender- 
ness, without reverence to Heaven, charity to man, and 
thanks to the beneficent genius which sang for us so 
nobly? 

I never saw the writer but once, but shall always be 
glad to think that some words of mine, printed in a 
periodical of that day, and in praise of these amazing 
verses (which, strange to say, appeared almost unnoticed 
at first in the magazine in which Mr. Hood published 
them) — I am proud, I say, to think that some words of 
appreciation of mine reached him on his death-bed, and 
pleased and soothed him in that hour of manful resigna- 
tion and pain. 

As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, multiplied kind- 
nesses which he has conferred upon us all ; upon our chil- 
dren ; upon people educated and uneducated ; upon the 
myriads here and at home, who speak our common tongue ; 
have not you, have not I, all of us reason to be thankful 
to this kind friend, who soothed and charmed so many 
hours, brought pleasure and sweet laughter to so many 
homes ; made such multitudes of children happy ; endowed 
us with such a sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair fan- 



CHARITY AND HUMOR 235 

cies, soft sympathies, hearty enjoyments. There are crea- 
tions of Mr. Dickens's which seem to me to rank as per- 
sonal benefits; figures so delightful, that one feels happier 
and better for knowing them, as one does for being 
brought into the society of very good men and women. 
The atmosphere in w^hich these people live is wholesome 
to breathe in; you feel that to be allowed to speak to 
them is a personal kindness; you come away better for 
your contact with them; your hands seem cleaner from 
having the privilege of shaking theirs. Was there ever a 
better charity sermon preached in the world than Dick- 
ens's " Christmas Carol "? I believe it occasioned immense 
hospitality throughout England ; was the means of light- 
ing up hundreds of kind fires at Christmas time; caused 
a wonderful outpouring of Christmas good feeling; of 
Christmas punch-brewing; an awful slaughter of Christ- 
mas turkeys, and roasting and basting of Christmas beef. 
As for this man's love of children, that amiable organ 
at the back of his honest head must be perfectly mon- 
strous. All children ought to love him. I know two 
that do, and read his books ten times for once that they 
peruse the dismal preachments of their father. I know 
one who, when she is happy, reads *' Nicholas Nickleby " ; 
when she is unhappy, reads " Nicholas Nickleby "; when 
she is tired, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; w^hen she is in 
bed, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she has nothing 
to do, reads *' Nicholas Nickleby " ; and when she has 
finished the book, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " over again. 
This candid young critic, at ten years of age, said, " I 
like Mr. Dickens's books much better than your books, 
papa; " and frequently expressed her desire that the latter 



236 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

author should write a book like one of Mr. Dickens's 
books. Who can ? Every man must say his own thoughts 
in his own voice, in his own way; lucky is he who has 
such a charming gift of nature as this, which brings all 
the children in the world trooping to him, and being 
fond of him. 

I remember when that famous " Nicholas Nickleby " 
came out, seeing a letter from a pedagogue in the north 
of England, which, dismal as it was, was immensely com- 
ical. " Mr. Dickens's ill-advised publication," wrote the 
poor schoolmaster, " has passed like a whirlwind over the 
schools of the North." He was a proprietor of a cheap 
school ; Dotheboys Hall was a cheap school. There were 
many such establishments in the northern counties. Par- 
ents were ashamed, that never were ashamed before, until 
the kind satirist laughed at them ; relatives were fright- 
ened ; scores of little scholars were taken away ; poor 
schoolmasters had to shut their shops up ; every peda- 
gogue was voted a Squeers, and many suffered, no doubt 
unjustly; but afterwards school-boys' backs were not so 
much caned ; school-boys' meat was less tough and more 
plentiful ; and school-boys' milk was not so sky-blue. 
What a kind light of benevolence it is that plays round 
Crummies and the Phenomenon, and all those poor thea- 
tre people in that charming book! What a humor! and 
what a good-humor ! I coincide with the youthful critic, 
whose opinion has just been mentioned, and own to a 
family admiration for " Nicholas Nickleby." , 

One might go on, though the task would be endless 
and needless, chronicling the names of kind folks with 
whom this kind genius has made us familiar. Who does 



CHARITY AND HUMOR , 237 

not love the Marchioness, and Mr. Richard Swiveller? 
Who does not sympathize, not only with Oliver Twist, 
but his admirable 3'Oung friend the artful Dodger? 
Who has not the inestimable advantage of possessing a 
Mrs. Nickleby in his own family? Who does not bless 
Sairey Gamp and wonder at Mrs. Harris? Who does 
not venerate the chief of that illustrious family who, 
being stricken by misfortune, wisely and greatly turned 
his attention to " coals," the accomplished, the Epicurean, 
the dirty, the delightful Micawber? 

I may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand and 
a thousand times, — I delight and wonder at his genius ; 
I recognize in it — I speak with awe and reverence — a 
commission from that Divine Beneficence, whose blessed 
task we know^ it will one day be to wipe every tear from 
every eye. Thankfully I take my share of the feast of 
love and kindness, which this gentle, and generous, and 
charitable soul has contributed to the happiness of the 
world. I take and enjoy my share, and say a benediction 
for the meal. 



NOTES 



SWIFT 



I 



5. — Harlequiyt. A character of the early Italian masked comedy, who, 
dressed in a parti-colored costume, amused the audience by his pranks and 
rude wit. He was transferred to the English stage in the eighteenth century 
by the actor Rich, of whom this story was frequently told. 

15. — Try and describe. For try to describe; a colloquialism which Thack- 
eray frequently adopts; (cf. p. 38, 1. 2, to try and please, etc.) 

20. — Kilkenny. A town on the Nore in the county of Kilkenny in sauthern 
Ireland. Swift entered the grammar school here when he was six, and re- 
mained until he was fourteen. Among his schoolfellows here was William 
Congreve, the dramatist. 

21. — Was wild. There is no evidence that Swift was dissipated while at 
Trinity College. He seems, however, to have applied himself only to those 
studies which suited his fancy. 

25. — Took orders. I. e. he was ordained as a clergyman of the Church of 
England. 

30. — Laracor. A small town in the county of Meath, province of Leinster, 
Ireland. 

1. — Temple's natural daughter. " 'Miss Hetty' she was called in the family, 
where her face, and her dress, and Sir William's treatment of her, all made the 
real fact about her birth plain enough. Sir William left her a thousand 
pounds." (Hannay's note.) But there is no evidence that Temple was 
Stella's father. 

6. — His deanery of St. Patrick. Swift was installed as Dean of St. Patrick's 
Cathedral in Dublin, June 13, 1713. 

12. — Drapier's Letters. A series of letters begun in 1724, addressed by 
Swift, under the pen-name of M. B. Drapier, to the Irish people, and advising 
them to refuse the copper money coined under government patent by William 
Wood ("Wood's half-pence"). The transaction was a corrupt one, and was 
made by Swift an occasion for a general discussion of Irish grievances. His 
fierce attacks resulted in a withdrawal of the patent. 

13. — Gulliver's Travels. Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World 
by Lemuel Gulliver (1726) . One of Swift's bitterest satires on the weaknesses 
and vices of the human race. 

13. — He married Hester Johnson. The question of Swift's marriage to 
Hester Johnson (Stella) occasioned a lively literary dispute. Craik, Swift's 
most reliable biographer, believes that the marriage actually took place, 'but 
the fullest investigation has failed to reveal any evidence in support of his view. 

239 



240 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

37. 24.— Scott. Sir Walter Scott, whose Life of Swift appeared in 1814. 

37. 25. — Johnson. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), author of the famous dic- 
tionary. His essay on Swift is contained in his Lives of the English Poets. 
Boswell refers to Johnson's opinion of Swift in his Tour to the Hebrides: "He 
seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift; for I once 
took the liberty to ask him if Swift had personally offended him, and he told 
me he had not." 

38. 5. — Stella and Vanessa controversy. An allusion to the quarrel between 
Stella and Vanessa (Esther Vanhomrigh). Miss Vanhomrigh felt for Swift 
a passion which he sought alternately to humor and to check. She followed 
him to Ireland in 1714. In 1723 she wrote to Stella or to Swift, asking whether 
they were married; Swift went over to Vanessa's house, threw her letter on 
the table, and went ofif without saying a word. Vanessa survived the shock 
only a few weeks, and in her will left money for the publication of Swift's poem, 
Cadenus and Vanessa, in which their amour is described. 

38. 10. — Would we have liked to live with him? An instance of Thackeray's 

fondness for imagining himself a contemporary of the eighteenth century 
characters of whom he wrote. 

38. 18. — Fielding, Henry (1707-54); the great English novelist; author of 

Tom Jones. See Thackeray's fifth lecture. 

38. 19. — The Temple. The name applied to the great law school and barris- 

ters' quarters in London. The building occupies the site of a semi-monastic 
structure belonging originally to the order of Knights Templars. 

38. 24:.— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728-1774); author of The Vicar of Wakefield and 

The Deserted Village. See Thackeray's sixth lecture. 

38. 24.— James Boswell (1740-95). The friend and biographer of Dr. Samuel 
Johnson. 

39. 4. — A coward's blow and a dirty bludgeon. Thackeray is here rather unjust 
to Swift. 

39. 5. — Blue ribbon. The insignia of the Order of the Garter, the highest 

decoration in the gift of the English crown. 
39. 13.— The Opposition. The members of Parliament opposed to the party 

in office. 
39. 20.— Bolingbroke. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751); 

English statesman and political writer; at one time prime minister. This 

letter was addressed to Bolingbroke and Pope (April 5, 1729) ; the lines quoted 

are from the part written to Pope. 

39. 31. — Macheath. The highwayman hero of Gay's Beggar's Opera (1728). 

40. 2. — Apron. The characteristic garment worn by the bishops of the English 
church as a sign of their office. 

40. 4. — A living. I. e. an ecclesiastical living; a benefice. 

40. 5. — Patent place. A post conferred by royal patent or license. 

40. 8. — Mitre and crosier. The insignia of office of a bishop. 

40. 9. — St. James's. St. James's Palace was the official residence of Queen Anne. 

40. 20. — Condottieri. Italian for "soldiers of fortune." The name refers here 

to party leaders. 



NOTES 241 

20. — The Boyne. The battle of the Boyne was fought on the river of that 
name in Ireland, July 1, 1690, between King William III and the deposed 
Stuart king, James II. James was decisively defeated. 

26. — South Sea Bubble. The popular name given to the scheme devised 
by the South Sea Company in 1711 to provide for the extinction of the public 
debt. The company prospered enormously, the shares of its stock selling at 
many times their par value. Thousands of people in all walks of life invested 
their money with the company and lost it when the bubble burst in 1720. 

27. — Railway mania. An effort was made in 1850 to float a great number 
of railway companies. The results to the shareholders were, as in the case 
of the South Sea Bubble, usually disastrous. "Not many centuries ago" is, 
of course, a humorous hyperbole for "a short time ago." 

11. — Coup. A political or diplomatic stroke. 

14. — French general. Napoleon Bonaparte. When the British govern- 
ment was led to believe that he had planned to employ the neutral Danish 
fleet against Great Britain, they demanded from the Danes the surrender of 
the fleet, promising to restore the ships at the end of the war. When the 
Danes refused, the British bombarded Copenhagen until the fleet was sur-- 
rendered (September 6, 1807). Thackeray represents Napoleon as making 
the Copenhagen affair a pretext for his proposed invasion of England. 

12. — Poetical power. Dryden's opinion of Swift's poetical power was 
summed up in the terse criticism: "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet." 
Most of Swift's verse is vigorous; little of it is real poetry. 

21. — Sir William Temple (1628-99). Statesman, essayist, dilettante. In 
political life he is best known as the originator of the triple alliance of Holland, 
England, and Sweden against France; in literature his best known work is his 
essay on the art of gardening. Swift's employment in Temple's house began 
in 1689 and continued with only one notable break until Sir William's death. 
For an account of Swift's position in the Temple household see Craik's Life, 
Vol. 1, Chap. 1. Thackeray's picture of Temple is somewhat harsh and un- 
sympathetic. 

26. — The upper servants' table. Although the position of a private chap- 
lain in a nobleman's house was not, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth 
centuries, counted as much above that of an upper servant, there is no evidence 
that Swift did not dine with the family while he was under Temple's roof. 

7. — Epicurean. A follower of Epicurus, a Greek philosopher who lived 
342-270 B. C. His sj'stem of philosophy was soon misunderstood, and his 
rule of living for pleasure abused, until the term Epicurean came finally to be 
applied to the man who gave himself up to bodily indulgence. Thackeray 
uses the word in its philosophical rather than in its popular sense. 

9. — He pays his court to the Ciceronian m,ajesty, etc. Figurative references 
to Temple's dilettante pursuit of literature. 

11. — Dallies by the south wall. In his essay Upon the Gardens of Epicurus, 
or of Gardening (1685) Temple tells of the growing of plums by training them 
against a south wall. 

22 — Dorinda. Dorinda is Swift's name for Martha, Lady Gifford, Tem- 



242 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

pie's sister; Dorothea is the name he gives to Dorothy, Sir William's wife. 
Thackeray's quotation is from Swift's poem Occasioned by Sir William Temple's 
Late Illness and Recovery (Dec, 1693) . 

44. 30. — One of the menials wrote it. I. e. Swift. 

45. 5. — Moxa. "A woolly, soft substance prepared from the young leaves of 
Artemisia Chinensis, and plants of other species, and burnt on the skin to 
produce an ulcer; hence, any substance used in a like manner." (Webster's 
Diet.) . 

45. 13. — His Excellency's own gentleman. I. e. Sir William's valet or body- 

servant. 
45. 14. — Parson Teague. The derisive name applied to young Swift. It occurs 

in the famous Lillibulero song, so intimately associated with the English 
revolution of 1688; in it the name "broder Teague" is given in derision to the 
Irish. 
45. 25. — Hester Johnson. Stella; see notes to 37, 1 and 13. 

45. 29. — Plates-bandes. Flower borders for walks or walls. 

45. 30. — Diogenes Laertius. The reputed author of Lives and Doctrines of 

Famous Philosophers, written in the third century A. D. 
45. 31. — Julius CcBsar. "Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, 

His private arbours, and new-planted orchards. 

On this side Tiber; " 

(Julius CcBsar III, 2, 252-4). 

45. 31. — Semiramis. A legendary queen of Assyria, who flourished about 2000 

B. C. She is said to have practiced horticulture. 

45. 31. — Hesperides. In Greek mythology the three daughters of Hesperus, 
the evening star. They kept in their garden the golden apples of Hera, but 
were robbed of the treasure by Hercules. 

46. 1. — Mcecenas (70?-8 B. C). A statesman and cultured patron of literary 
men in the reign of Augustus. He was the owner of extensive gardens. 

46. 1. — Strabo (63? B. C.-24? A. D.). A famous Greek geographer, who 

refers to certain beautiful gardens in his description of Jericho. 

46. 2. — The Assyrian kings who succeeded Semiramis kept up the gardens 

which she had had made. All of the names explained in the last seven notes 
are mentioned by Temple in his essay on gardening. 

46. 3. — Pythagoras (600?-510? B. C). A Greek philosopher who is known 

chiefly because of his doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Temple's ex- 
planation of the precept to abstain from beans was undoubtedly suggested by 
the fact that beans were used as ballots at Athenian elections, the white beans 
representing an affirmative vote; the black, a negative. 

46. 13. — One person. I. e. Hester Johnson (Stella) . 

47. 16.— Bishop Kennet. White Kennet (1660-1728) , Bishop of Peterborough, 
a scholar and antiquarian. 

47. 26. — The red bag. Public officers in England use red woolen bags for 

carrying documents and official seals. 
47. 32. — Mr. Pope (a Papist). Alexander Pope (1688-1744); English poet, 

and translator of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.* See Thackeray's fourth lecture. 



NOTES 243 

7. — This picture of t're great Dean seems a true one. Compare with Bishop 
Kennet's account of Swift, Thackeray's own picture of the satirist in Henry 
Esmond: 

"I presume you are the editor of the Post-Boy, sir?" says the Doctor in a 
grating voice that had an Irish twang; and he looked at the Colonel from under 
his two bushy eyebrows with a pair of very clear blue eyes. His complexion was 
muddy, his figure rather fat, his chin double. He wore a shabby cassock, and 
a shabby hat over his black wig, and he pulled out a great gold watch, at which 
he looked very fierce." (Book III, Chap. 5). 

31. — The Tale of a Tub. A satire published in 1704 directed principally 
against the opponents of the Church of England, but interpreted by some as 
reflecting upon all forms of faith. The essay stood repeatedly in the way of 
Swift's ecclesiastical* preferment. The bishopric here referred to was that of 
Hereford, which Swift's friends tried in vain to secure for him in 1712. 

12. — John Gay (1685-1732). Poet and dramatist; see Thackeray's fourth 
lecture. 

13. — A seat on the Bench. I. e. on the bench of bishops in the House of 
Lords. 

16. — Cassock and bands. The official attire of clergymen of the Church of 
England. 

25. — Steele (1672-1729). English essayist; see Thackeray's third lecture. 

1. — "Peccavi." "I have sinned." 

4. — Wooden shoes. A reference to the French Roman Catholics, who were 
popularly supposed to wear wooden-soled shoes. 

9. — Tipsy guardroom. A reference to Steele's army life, first as a private 
in the Duke of Ormond's troop, and then as a captain in Lucas's Fusiliers. 

10. — Covent Garden. A large square in London which was originally the 
garden of the Abbot of Westminster. The allusion is to Fielding, who was 
helped home frequently from a Covent Garden tavern. 

14. — Abudah. A rich merchant of Bagdad in the Tales of the Genii by James 
Ridley (1736-65), who is driven by the nightly visits of a wretched old hag to 
seek the talisman of Oromanes, which will bring the possessor perfect peace. 
Later he finds out that perfect happiness can come only from faith in God, and 
a complete obedience to His will, and that his adventures in quest of the 
talisman have been only dreams. The story is not Arabian, but Persian. 

18. — What a vulture that tore the heart of that giant! Swift is here likened to 
Prometheus, in Greek mythology the Titan who presumed to steal fire from 
heaven, and who was punished by being chained to a great rock on Mount 
Caucasus; here a vulture feasted daily on his liver, which grew again at night. 

21. — Goethe (1749-1832). The greatest German poet. Kis best known 
work is his drama Faust. For Thackeray's acquaintance with him see Intro- 
duction, pp. 13-14. 

25. — -"Sceva indignatio." "Fierce indignation." Quoted from the Latin 
epitaph which Swift wrote for his own grave: "Hie depositum est corpus 
Jonathan Swift, S. T. P. hujus ecclesiae cathedralis decani: ubi saeva indig- 
natio ulterius cor lacerare nequit. Etc." (Here rests the body of Jonathan 



244 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Swift, Professor of Sacred Theology, Dean of this church, where fierce indigna- 
tion can no longer tear the heart. Etc.")- 

52. 6. — Lilliputian island. The land visited by Lemuel Gulliver in the first 
of his voyages. The inhabitants of the country are represented as being only 
a few inches in height, and as living in a correspondingly miniature world. 

."vi. 8. — Samson, -with a bone in his hand. Judges XV, 15: "And he found a 

new jaw-bone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it and slew a thousand 
men." 

52. 21. — Modest Proposal. The Modest Proposal for preventing the Children 
of Poor People in Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or the Country 
(1729) was one of the numerous satirical tracts which Swift wrote to reveal the 
wretchedness of life in Ireland. The "proposal," presented with studied 
calmness and horrible ghastliness of detail, was that parents unable to support 
their children should fatten and sell them to be eaten. 

53. 19. — Ahnanach des Gourmands. Almanac of Gormands, published in Paris, 
1805-12. 

53. 20. — On nait rotisseur. "A man is born a cook;" i. e. cooks — like poets — 

are born, not made. 

53. 27. — Among his favorite horses. On his fourth voyage Gulliver discovered 
a country, the land of the Houyhnhnms, which was inhabited by a race of 
intelligent horses, who employed human beings as pack and work animals. 

54. 11. — Royal Sovereign. A common name for a leading ship in the British navy. 
54. 1 1 . — Brobdingnag. The land of a giant race visited by Gulliver. 

54. 17. — Austrian lip. The protruding under lip of the House of Hapsburg, 

the reigning family in Austria. 

54. 25. — Mr. Macaulay has quoted the charming lines of the poet. Macaulay 

quoted in his essay on The Life and Writings of Addison (1843) from Addison's 
Latin poem of the battle of the Cranes and the Pigmies those lines which 
describe the attack of the Pigmy leader, who was half an ell taller than his 
warriors. See note to 81, 1. 

54. 28. — The mast of some great ammiral. Paradise Lost, I, 293-4. 

55. 11. — The unpronounceable country. The country of the Houyhnhnms. 

56. 6. — Mr. Punch. The hero of the "Punch and Judy show." The name 
was adopted by the leading English comic periodical, to which Thackeray 
contributed articles and drawings early in his literary career. See Introduc- 
tion, p. 15. 

56. 8. — Yahoos. The brute-like and degenerate race of men employed by 
their masters, the horses, as domestic animals in Gulliver's fourth voyage. 
This tale is a bitter satire on the follies and vices of the human race. 

57. 10.— Delany. Patrick Delany (1685? - 1768), Dean of Down in Ireland, 
and an intimate friend of Swift's. 

57. 11. — Archbishop King (Born 1650). Primate of Ireland and friend of 

Swift's. 

57. 22. — Dean Drapier Bickerstaff Gulliver. Isaac Bickerstaff was the pen- 

name under which Swift wrote an astrological almanac, The Predictions for 
the Year 1708, in ridicule of a charlatan astrologer, John Partridge. The 



NOTES 245 

pamphlet at once became exceedingly popular. Steele used the name again 
in the first few numbers of his Taller (1709). For the other names, Drapier 
and Gulliver, see notes to 37, 12 and 37, 13. 

15. — Harley. Earl of Oxford (1661-1724); a leading statesman of Swift's 
time and a great friend of the poet's. 

15. — Peterborough. Earl of Peterborough (1658-1735) ; a leading statesman 
and a friend of Pope's. 

14. — Cadenus and Vanessa. Cadenus is an anagram for Decanus, the 
Latin for Dean. Vanessa Swift compounded from £5ther Fawhomrigh. The 
poem alluded to was written in 1713, and published after Miss Vanhomrigh's 
death. See note to 38, 5. 

22. — // y prend gout. French for "he acquires a taste for it." 

31. — Ariadne. In Greek mythology the daughter of Minos, King of Crete, 
who assisted Theseus to slay the Minotaur. She fled with the hero to the 
island of Naxos, where he deserted her. 

7. — The Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick. An allusion to 
Swift's Meditation on a Broomstick (1708), a parody on the Moral Meditations 
of Robert Boyle. 

5. — Sheridan. Dr. Thomas Sheridan (1684-1738), an Irish clergyman 
and schoolmaster, who for years was an intimate friend of Swift's; Swift 
finally separated from him in anger. 

CONGREVE AND ADDISON 

2. — The Reform Bill. The first Reform Bill, passed in 1832, removed some 
of the more glaring abuses in Parliamentary representation. 

3. — ''Union." The "Union" is still the leading debating club of the 
university, and is now provided with a very handsome building. 

6. — Opposition and Government. By the Government is meant the ministry 
in power; by the Opposition, the party out of power. 

10. — John's Trinity. Two well-known Cambridge colleges. 

13.— Pitt. William Pitt, the Younger (1759-1806); English statesman 
and parliamentary orator; Prime Minister 1783-1806. 

13. — Mirabeau (1749-1791). A French orator and statesman who became 
president of the French National Assembly in 1791. 

16. — With the family seat in his pocket. I. e. ready to nominate any speaker 
of whom he approves for a seat in the House of Commons. Before the Reform 
Bill the great nobles had what were called "pocket boroughs," i. e. constit- 
uencies which they controlled. 

19. — Cornwall .... Old Sarum. Two of the "rotten" or "pocket" 
boroughs which were abolished by the Reform Bill. The latter, which re- 
turned two members to Parliament, did not have a single voter within its limits. 

1. — Boxing the watch. Tipping the watchman over in his box, a favorite 
amusement of the young gallants of Queen Anne's time. 

3. — Christ-church. One of the most famous of the colleges of the Univer- ' 
sity of Oxford. 



246 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

66, 6. — Prince Eugene (1663-1736). A renowned Austrian general who be- 
came very popular with the English as Marlborough's ally against Louis XIV 
at the battle of Blenheim (1704). He is mentioned by Addison in the Sir 
Roger de Coverley papers of the Spectator and figures also in Thackeray's 
Henry Esmond. 

66. 11. — Busby. Richard Busby (1606-1695) , the head-master of Westminster 

school, who was so rigid a disciplinarian that his flogging became proverbial. 
The rod is here likened to the staff of Aaron, which budded and brought forth 
almonds. (Numbers XVII, 8). 

66. 14. — Prior, Matthew (166*4-1721); English poet; see Thackeray's fourth 

lecture. 

66. 14. — Tickell, Thomas (1686-1740); English poet and essayist. He is 

best known as a friend of Addison's, whose works he edited, and as a contribu- 
tor to the Spectator. 

66. 14. — John Gay. See note to 49, 12. 

66. 14. — John Dennis (1657-1734). A dramatic critic and satirist who was at 

one time highly respected, but who was later satirized and ridiculed by his 
literary contemporaries. 

66. 18. — Save one. I. e. Pope; see Thackeray's fourth lecture. 

66. 19. — Happy quarter-day. I. e. a quarterly pay-day. 

66. 27.— Mars, Bacchus, Apollo. The Roman gods of war, of wine, and of 

poetry -and music respectively. 

66. 2S.— Marlborough. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722); 

a famous English general who commanded the allied armies in Holland in the 
War of the Spanish Succession, and won successively the great battles of 
Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709). 
Addison sings his praises in The Campaign, and Congreve, in a number of 
Pindaric Odes. 

66. 28. — "Accourez," etc. "Hasten, chaste nymphs of Parnassus. Note well 

the harmony of the tones which my lyre produces, and you, winds, hold silence. 
Of Louis I will sing." (Quoted from the first stanza of Boileau's Ode sur la 
prise de Namur.) 

66. 29. — Boileau (1636-1711) . A French poet and man of letters who exerted 

a powerful influence on English literature during the age of Pope. Addison, 
who met him in Paris in 1700, was much affected by his personality and power. 

66. 29.— r/ze Grand Monarch. Louis XIV, King of France (1638-1715). 
whose long reign was a succession of brilliant political and literary achieve- 
ments. Thackeray has caricatured "Le Grand Monarque" in a series of 
three drawings; the first represents "Ludovicus Rex," the king in all his regal 
robes; the second, "Rex," the regal robes without the man; and the third, 
"Ludovicus," the man without any emblems of his exalted rank. 

67. 13. — Pindaric Odes. Pindar (522-443 B. C.) was a Greek poet famous as a 
writer of choral poetry. His odes were written to be sung; those of his English 
imitators are usually merely rhymed poems of a dignified style. 

67. 14. — Johnson's Poets. See note to 37, 25. 

67. 14. — Poets' corner. This phrase was undoubtedly borrowed from the name 



NOTES 247 

given the corner in Westminster Abbey, Lofidon, where many poets are buried 
or have monuments. 

19. — Old Bachelor. This popular play appeared in 1693 and was acted 
until 1789. It was greatly praised by John Dryden. 

21. — Charles Montague Lord Halifax (1661-1715). English poet, satirist, 
and statesman. A patron of Addison's. 

25. — Pipe-office. "The office of the Clerk of the Pipe [i. e. of the enrolled 
accounts of crown officials] in the Exchequer." (New English Diet.). 

30. — "Ah, V heureux temps," etc. "Oh the happy time when these fables 
were realities." 

2. — Smoked them. Found them out and abolished them. There is, of 
course, a playful allusion to the word "Pipe." 

15. — At the same school, etc. I. e. at the school at Kilkenny and at Trinity 
College, Dublin. See note to 36, 20. 

17. — Middle Temple. See note to 38, 19. 

20. — Piazza. I. e. of Covent Garden, a famous market square of London. 
See note to 50, 10. 

20. — The Mall. A broad promenade on the north side of St. James's Park, 
London. 

22. — Mr. Dryden. John Dryden (1631-1700); a celebrated English poet, 
dramatist, and literary critic; poet-laureate 1670-1688. His translation of 
Virgil's /Eneid appeared in 1697. 

3. — Will's. A coffee-house in Russell Street, London, made famous by the 
patronage of Dryden. 

3. — Pope. See Thackeray's fourth lecture and note to 47, 32. Pope's 
translation of the Iliad appeared in 1720. 

5.— Voltaire (1694-1778). French poet, dramatist, and satirist. He 
visited England in 1726 after an imprisonment in France, and remained there 
for two years. 

9.— Grub Street. A street in London which, during the eighteenth century 
was, according to Samuel Johnson, "much inhabited by writers of small 
histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence any mean production 
is called Grub-street." 

9. — Timon. An Athenian misanthrope, the hero of Shakspere's Timon of 
Athens. 

15. — Bracegirdle. Anne (1663? - 1748); a famous English actress noted 
for her beauty and benevolence. She attained her highest success in Con- 
greve's plays, and has been criticized, although without sufficient grounds, for 
her relations with him. Thackeray calls her in Henry Esmond "that most 
charming of actresses and lively and agreeable of women." [Esmond, Book H, 
Chapter V) . 

26. — Shameless Comic Muse. What follows is a lively figurative picture 
of the witty but immoral drama which the patronage of Charles II and the 
genius of Congreve helped to make popular, and of the critical war which 
finally resulted in the overthrow of the "shameless Comic Muse" and the 
establishment of a cleaner, if somewhat flatter, class of plays. 



248 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

69. 27. — Nell Gwynn (1650? - 1687) . A famous English actress and court 

beauty. In 1669 she became the mistress of Charles II. 

69. 30. — Jeremy Collier (1650-1726). An English divine famous for his 

Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, and for his Short View of the Profaneness 
and Immorality of the English Stage (1698) ; this last was an attack against the 
immoral drama so vigorous that it assisted greatly in bringing about a much 
needed reform. 

69. 31. — Jezebel. The wicked wife of Ahab, King of Israel. (See I Kings 18, 
4; 19, 1-2; 21. II Kings 9, 30-37). The word came to be used of any wicked, 
shameless woman, and is here applied figuratively to Restoration Comedy. 

70. 7. — -From the Continent with Charles. At the time of his restoration in 1660 
Charles II brought back with him many of the loose manners and morals of 
the French capital, where he had spent much of his time during his exile from 
England. 

70. 9. — Lciis. The name of two Greek courtesans; the more famous was born 

in Corinth about 180 B. C. 
70. 15. — Poor Nell. A possible reminiscence of Charles II's dying reference 

to his mistress, "Don't let poor Nelly starve." 
70. 18. — When the Puritans hooted her. The Puritans had closed the doors of 

the theatres in 1642; after the Restoration in 1660 they continued their attacks 

on the stage, — of course less openly. 
70. 28. — Harlequin. See note to 35, 5. 

70. 31. — Pompeii. An ancient Italian city which, with Herculaneum, was 
destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A. D. Of the remains of the 
city which modern excavations have uncovered, Sallust's House is probably 
the most perfect. 

71. 8. — We take the skull up, etc. A reminiscence of the grave diggers' scene 
in Hamlet (Act V, Sc. I) . 

72. 6. — Gaunt disciples. The Christians. 
72. ?).— Venus. Roman goddess of love. 
72. 9. — Bacchus. Roman god of wine. 

72. 14. — When the libertine hero, etc. A stock plot and characters of the 

Restoration drama. 
72. 16.— The ballad. A lyric poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674), which 

begins: 

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, 

Old time is still a-flying; 
And this same flower that smiles today. 
Tomorrow will be dying." 

72. 19. — Corydon .... Phillis. Stock names in pastoral poetry for 

country swains and maidens. 
72. 24. — Pas. Step. 

72. 26. — Chdlet. A little Swiss cottage. 

73. 1. — Mr. Punch. See note to 56, 6. 

73. 17. — Segrelo per esser felice. The secret of being happy. 

73. 18. — Falernian. A celebrated wine of tli« ancient Romans. 



NOTES 249 

31. — Mirabel or Belmour. The first is a character in Congreve's The Way 
of the World (1700) ; the second is from his Old Bachelor (1693) . 

2. — Scapin and Frontin. Witty, intriguing servants, — the first from 
Moliere's Les Fourberies de Scapin; the second, a stock character of the old 
French comedy. 

21. — Millamant. Mrs. Millamant is a lady of the high society type in 
Congreve's The Way of the World. 

22. — Doricourt. The hero of The Belle's Stratagem, a comedy by Mrs. 
Hannah Cowley (1743-1809). 

4. — Billingsgate. A famous London fish-market on the north bank of the 
Thames. From the foul language used by the fish-wives the name has come 
to be applied to foul language generally. 

6. — Horace (65-8 B. C). The most famous of Latin lyric poets and sat- 
irists. Congreve was fond of translating and imitating him. 

14. — Richelieu, Cardinal de (1585-1642); Prime Minister of Louis XIH, 
and one of the most celebrated of French statesmen. He was a brilliant 
writer, a patron of letters, and the founder of the French Academy. 

18. — Grammont' s French dandies Lerida. Philibert, Count 

de Gramont (1621-1707) was an unprincipled soldier and courtier who spent 
a great deal of his time at the dissolute court of Charles II of England. He 
took part in 1647 in the siege of Lerida, the capital of the province of 
Lerida in Spain. 

21. — Wells at Tunbridge. Tunbridge Wells, a fashionable watering place 
about thirty miles southeast of London. The stanza which follows is from 
a poem Written at Tunbridge Wells, on Miss Temple, afterwards Lady of Sir 
Thomas Lyttelton. 

6. — "As bold as his who snatched celestial fire." Prometheus; see note to 
51, 18. 

2. — Pas. The precedence. 

6. — Louis Qiiatorze. Louis XIV of France, called The Grand Monarch; 
see note to 66, 29. 

8. — Spring Garden. A famous old resort in St. James's Park, London. 

23. — We come now to a humor, etc. In connection with this lecture on Ad- 
dison should be read the chapter in Henry Esmond (Book II, Chapter XI) 
entitled The famous Mr. Joseph Addison. 

30. — Famous article in the Edinburgh Review. A reference to Macaulay's 
Essay on Addison, which appeared in 1843, just eight years before Thackeray's 
lecture on Addison. 

31. — Goethe. See note to 51, 21. 

6. — Brought their star and ribbon into discredit. I. e. granted their favors too 
indiscriminately. The star and ribbon were emblems of high rank. 

11. — Mr. Finkethman. An actor alluded to in the fourth number of the 
Tatler and in numbers 31, 370, and 502 of the Spectator. 

12. — Mr. Doggett. Thomas Doggett (died 1721); a popular comic actor 
who is several times alluded to in the Spectator. 

14. — Don S altera. John Salter, a popular coffee-house keeper and owner 
of a museum of curiosities, who is referred to by Steele in No. 34 of the Tatler. 



250 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

80. 25. — Tye-wig full bottom. The first, a wig tied at the back 

and thus brought to a point; the second, one which is allowed to flow over the 
shoulders. 

80. 28. — Salisbury, or New Sarum; in Wiltshire, England, eighty miles south- 

west of London. 

80. 29. — Charterhouse. A famous school and charitable foundation in 
London. The site was originally occupied by a Carthusian convent; after 
the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry VIH, the place was ultimately 
bought by Thomas Sutton, who endowed the present foundation. Many 
famous Englishmen, including Thackeray himself, studied at Charterhouse. 

81. 1. — The Pigmies and the Cranes. Addison's story in Latin verse of the 
annual battle between the Cranes and the Pigmies, a nation of dwarfs who 
lived, according to ancient mythology, on the banks of the Upper Nile. See 
note to 54, 25. 

81. 6. — Lyceus. "A surname of Bacchus; hence used for Wine": (New English 

Diet.). 

81. 7. — The Peace of Ryswick, in i6g7, marked the close of the so-called War of 
the Palatinate between Louis XIV of France and an alliance of other Euro- 
pean states. 

82. 2. — Congees. Ceremonious farewells. 

82. 26.^Wyche. The letter alluded to was addressed "To Mr. Wyche, His 

Majesty's Resident at Hambourg, May, 1703." 

82. 27. — "Hoc." "Hock The wine called in German Hoch- 

heimer, produced at Hochheim on the Main . . . ." (New English 
Diet.). 

83. 1. — Swift describes him. There are numerous allusions to this friendship 
between Addison and Swift in the latter's Journal to Stella. 

83. 15. — Statins (45-96 A. D.). A Roman poet, part of whose Thebais was 

translated by Pope. 
83. 17. — Haymarket. A London street, which was used from 1664 to 1831 as 

a hay-market. 
83. 2\.— Blenheim. Fought August 13, 1704. In this battle the Duke 

defeated the French and Bavarians under Marshal Tallard. For a lively 
account of the engagement see Henry Esmond, Book II, Chapter I X. 
83. 23. — Lord Treasurer Godolphin (c. 1635-1712) . A favorite with Charles II, 

James II, and William. He was dismissed under Queen Anne in 1710. 
85. 2. — King of the Romans. Joseph I of Austria, who was styled King of the 

Holy Roman Empire. 
85. 22,.— The Coffee-house Senate. Addison's friends at Button's coffee-house. 

Pope gives the following account of Addison's manner of living: 

"Addison usually studied all the morning; then met 
his party at Button's; dined there, and stayed five or six 
hours, and sometimes far into the night. I was of the 
company for about a year, but found it too much for me; 
it hurt my health, and so I quitted it." — Pope: S pence's 
Anecdotes. 



NOTES 251 

85. 28. — Divus. I. e. as divine. This was the title which the Roman senate 
gave to some of the emperors. 

86. 5. — Fulham. On the Thames, five miles southwest of St. Paul's in London. 
86. 9. — Splendid but dismal union. In Esmond (Book II, Chapter XI) Thack- 
eray calls the countess "a shrew and a vixen." 

86. 14. — Examiner .... Guardian .... Taller. . . Spectator. 

The titles of the well-known periodicals to which Addison contributed. 

86. 23.— Jeffreys (1648-1689). Lord Chief Justice of England in 1683. He 

was noted for his cruelty, particularly in "The Bloody Assizes" which followed 
the unhappy uprising of the Duke of Monmouth against James II in 1685. 

86. 30. — Breaking Priscian's head. Priscian was a celebrated Latin gram- 
marian of the fifth century A. D. To break Priscian's head means to make 
bad mistakes in Latin grammar. 

87. 5. — Addison wrote his papers . . . gayly. Of this ease of composition 
Pope says: 

"Mr. Addison wrote very fluently; but he was some- 
times very slow and scrupulous in correcting. He would 
show his verses to several friends; and would alter almost 
everything that any of them hinted at as wrong. He 
seemed to be too diffident of himself; and too much con- 
cerned about his character as a poet; or (as he worded it) 
too solicitous for that kind of praise which, God knows, 
is a very little matter after all." — Pope: Spence's Anec- 
dotes. 

89. 1. — Grecian. A coffee-house in the Strand, London, much frequented by 

the literary men of the early eighteenth century. 
89. 1. — The Devil. A famous old London tavern, which had been popular 

with literary men since the reign of James I. 
89. 1. — 'Change. The court around which the London Exchange was built. 

89. 7. — To damn, .with faint praise. A line from Pope's famous verses on 

Addison in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, quoted on pp. 147-8. 
89. 13. — Sir Roger de Coverley. A country gentleman; the most famous of the 

characters which Addison developed in the Spectator papers. 
89. 17. — A propos de bottes. "Concerning flasks;" i. e. not to the point. Addi- 

son's account of Sir Roger's speech follow: 

"The speech he made was so little to the purpose that 
I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it; 
and I believe was not so much designed by the knight 
himself to inform the Court, as to give him a figure in my 
eyes, and to keep up his credit in the country." Spec- 
tator, No. 122. 

89. 19. — Doll Tearsheel. A woman of the streets in Shakspere's King 

Henry IV, Part II. An allusion here to Spectator, No. 410, by Steele. 

89. 20. — Temple Garden. The garden surrounding the Temple in London. 

See note to 38, 19. 



252 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

22. — Game-preserver. The interest taken by country gentlemen in the 
preservation of game on their estates has often been the subject for satire. 

14. — "Soon as the evening shades prevail." Written for the Spectator for 
August 23, 1712 (No. 465), and widely known as a hymn. The first stanza is 
not quoted. 

STEELE 

21. — Swift's History. Swift's The History of the last four years of Queen 
Anne, in four volumes, was not published until 1758. Swift regarded this as 
his greatest work, and took great care with its composition. 

2S.—Walpole. Sir Robert, Earl of Orford (1676-1745) ; English statesman; 
Prime Minister from 1715 to 1717 and from 1721 to 1742. Although, to 
accomplish great diplomatic ends, he resorted to open bribery, he successfully 
carried out his policies of maintaining peace in England, and of creating a 
sound financial system. 

3. — The Pretender. James Stuart, son of James II of England, who claimed 
the throne after the death of his father in 1701. He was born in 1688 and died 
in Rome in 1766. He was called the "Old Pretender" to distinguish him from 
his son, Charles Edward, "The Young Pretender." 

4. — Copious archdeacon. William Coxe (1747-1828), whose Memoirs of 
John, Duke of Marlborough, etc. (3 volumes) appeared in 1818-9. 

14. — Churchill. Surname of the Duke of Marlborough. 

17. — Mnemosyne. In Greek mythology, mother of the nine Muses and 
goddess of memory. 

23. — Turpin. Richard, or Dick Turpin was a notorious highwayman and 
chief of a band of robbers. He was finally captured and executed at York— 
not at Newgate — in 1739. 

23. — His dying speech. When the body of an eighteenth century criminal 
was scarce cold, the streets were filled with men and women selling pretended 
confessions of the outlaw and ballad stories of his deeds. 

23. — Newgate. A prison in London near the end of Nevirgate Street. It 
was partially burned in 1780 at the time of the Lord Gordon uprising, an ac- 
count of which is given in Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, but was rebuilt two years 
later. 

27. — Take the side of the Dons. I. e. side with the "loose characters" like 
Don Juan, the libertine hero of Byron's poem of that name. 

4. — Doctor Smollett (1721-1771). An English novelist. See Thackeray's 
fifth lecture. 

22. — Eton. This famous English school on the bank of the Thames twenty- 
one miles from London, was founded in 1440 by Henry VI. A large number 
of great Englishmen have studied here. 

23. — Will Wimble. A somewhat eccentric character in the Sir Roger de 
Coverley papers of the Spectator. 

26. — Bath. An English health resort in Somersetshire about ninety miles 
from London. 



NOTES 253 

29. — Captain Macheaih. See note to 39, 31. Here the name is used for 
highwaymen in general. 

31. — Boniface. A stock name for an innkeeper. 

4. — Exeter Fly. The name of the stage-coach which made the run from 
London to Exeter, about one hundred and fifty miles southwest of London. 

10. — Ramillies . . Malplaquet. See note to Marlborough, bd, 2d). Thack- 
eray gives an account of these famous battles in Henry Esmond, Book II, 
Chapter XII, and Book III, Chapter I. 

31. — Staines. A town in Middlesex, England, about nineteen miles south- 
west of London. 

5. — Coram lalronibus. In the presence of robbers. 

9. — A nosegay in his hand carriage without springs. Con- 
demned prisoners on their way to the gallows carried nosegays. The carriage 
here alluded to is, of course, the cart in which the prisoner rode. 

13. — Tyburn was previous to 1783 the great place of public execution for 
Middlesex. The site is just north of the Marble Arch, the northeast entrance 
to Hyde Park. 

22. — Swift laughed at him. At the end of Chapter III of his Directions to 
.Servants. 

23. — Holland. Coarse, unbleached linen goods. 

11. Lord Mohun (1675-1712). A desperate and unprincipled nobleman 
who killed several men in duels. He appears as a prominent character in 
Henry Esmond. 

17. — Mrs. Bracegirdle. See note to 69, 15. The title Mrs. was applied 
at this time to unmarried as well as to married women. 

23. — Drury Lane. A London street running northwest from the Strand; 
famous for its theater, which was first opened in 1663. 

1. — Leicester Fields. Now Leicester Square; in Queen Anne's time the 
open fields outside the city proper where duels were frequently fought. 

15. — Turning the edge from him, etc. An indication that the prisoner at 
the bar had not yet been found guilty. After the court had found the accused 
guilty, the edge of the axe was turned toward him. 

30. — Bagnio in Long Acre. Long Acre runs into Drury Lane from the 
west and is not far from Leicester Square. The Bagnio was a bath-house 
usually kept by a surgeon. In Henry Esmond (Book I, Chapter XIV) the 
Viscount Castlewood is carried after his fatal duel with Lord Mohun "to one 
Mr. Aimes, a surgeon, in Long Acre, who kept a bath." Later in the same 
chapter the place is alluded to specifically as a "bagnio." 

18. — Waverley novels. The first of these novels by Scott, Waverley, 
appeared in 1814. 

20.— Miss Porters. The two sisters, Anna Maria Porter (1780-1832), 
and Jane Porter (1776-1850), were novelists. Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) 
and Scottish Chiefs (1809) by Jane Porter are still read. 

20. — Anne of Swansea. The pen-name of Anne Hatton, a sister of the 
famous actress, Mrs. Siddons, and the equally famous actor, John Kemble. 
She wrote in the early part of the nineteenth century a series of long novels 
which have now been entirely forgotten. 



254 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

100. 21. — Mrs. Radcliffe (1764-1823). A writer of stories of myatery and ad- 

venture, of which the most famous is The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) . 

100. 25. — Mrs. Manley (1663 - 1724). A writer of novels, plays, and satires, 

who was associated to some extent in her literary work with Swift. Because 
of the scandal in her principal work, The New Atalantis, she was arrested. 
The adjective "delectable" is used ironically. 

100. 27. — Tom Durfey. Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723); a writer of plays and 

verse. His best known work is a collection of coarse ballads entitled Pills to 
Purge Melancholy. 

100. 27. — Tom Brown (1663-1704). A dissipated writer of coarse satires. 

100. 27. — Ned Ward (c. 1660-1731) . An inn-keeper and writer of witty but 

coarse sketches. The London Spy appeared 1698-1700. 

102. 1. — Q. Stands for gwer/j/. 

102. 27. — Lille. The capital of French Flanders, captured by Prince Eugene 

and the Duke of Marlborough in 170S. Thackeray gives an account of this 
famous siege in Henry Esmond, Book II, Chapter XIV. 

102. 28. — Mr. Hill. Aaron Hill (1685-1750), a writer of tragedies and operas. 

103. A:.—Boyne. See note to 40, 20. 

103. 8. — Charterhouse. See note to 80, 29. 

103. 10. — James, Duke of Ormond (1665-1745). A Tory Irish statesman. 
Steele's uncle, Henry Gascoigne, acted as his private secretary. 

104. 9. — Merton. An Oxford College founded in 1264 by the Bishop of Rochester. 
104. 16. — " Tender Husband" . . "Conscious Lovers." Two comedies by 

Steele; the first appeared in 1705; the second, in 1722. 

104. 26. — Head boy. Dickens alludes similarly through the mouth of David 
Copperfield (Chapter XVIII) to the head boy as "a mighty creature, dwelling 
afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable." 

105. 10. — Gownboy. A scholar. The boys on the foundation, or endowment, 
at Charterhouse charity school wore gowns. 

105. 17. — Fagged. I. e. performed menial service. In some of the old English 

schools the junior students were forced to wait on the upperclassmen. A 
lively account of this fagging system may be found in Hughes's Tom Brown's 
School Days (1856). 

107. 1. — Garraiuay's. A famous coffee-house in Exchange Alley, Cornhill, 

London. 

107. 6. — The Rose. A tavern in Russell street, Covent Garden, London. 

107. 7. — Sir Plume and Mr. Diver. Fictitious names for men about town. 

107. IS.^H ay market. See note to 83, 17. 

107. 17. — Classical friend of Charterhouse Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Addison, 
whose favorite walk at Magdalen (pronounced Maudlin) College, Oxford, is 
now called "Addison's Walk." 

108. 3. — Immortal William. King William III of England. 

108. 20. — The "Lying Lover," or The Ladies' Friendship, was a weak moral 
comedy, which Steele declared in his Apology (1714) to have been "damned for 
its Piety." 

109. 13.— r/ie accession of George I. George I, who came to the throne at the 



NOTES 255 

death of Anne in 1714, was supported by Steele, whereas Bolingbroke and 

Swift were Tories and hence of the Opposition. 
111. 5. — Of one woman. The allusion is to Lady Elizabeth Hastings; the 

quotation, from Taller No. 49. Thackeray quotes again from tiiis number in 

Esmond, Book II, Chapter XV. 
111. 2B,.—Walpole. Horace, Earl of Orford (1717-1797) ; an English politician 

and author, best known by his Letters and by his romance. The Castle ofOtranto. 
113. 6. — Hampton. A village fourteen miles southwest of London. 

115. 8. — Chancery Lane. A street off Fleet Street, where the law-courts are 

situated. Steele's allies are, of course, bailiffs. 

115. 10.— Dr. Hoadly (1711-1776). Son of Bishop Benjamin Hoadly. The 
quotation is from John Nichols' Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard 
Steele (Lond. 1809) vol. II. p. 508, note. 

116. 2. — Mr. Joseph Miller (1684-1738). An actor who became known as the 
reputed author of Joe Miller's Jests, a compilation of jokes which appeared a 
year after his death. 

116. 28. — Gow7ismen. University men. 

116. 31. — Sponging-houses. Bailiffs' houses, where debtors were temporarily 
detained until they either settled with their creditors or were taken to jail. 

117. 17. — Damn with faint praise. An allusion to Addison; see note to 89, 7. 

117. 26. — Terrible lines of Swift. From Swift's The Day of Judgment, found 
among his Mss. after his death, and sent by Lord Chesterfield to Voltaire in a 
letter dated August 27, 1752. 

118. 13. — Bit. Hoaxed; cheated; in modern slang, "stung." 

119. 14. — In the Taller. Taller No. 181. Thackeray has quoted this story 
again, almost in Steele's words, in Henry Esmond, Book I, Chapter VI. 

121. 7. — Love their love with an A. An old game in which the players are suc- 
cessively called upon to supply impromptu, under penalty of a forfeit, quali- 
fying words beginning with a given letter. 

122. 5. — Lord Sparkish, etc. Characters in Swift's Polite Conversation (written 
1731; published 1738). 

122. 11. — Barmecide's. A story from the Arabian Nights of a rich prince who 

in jest seated a hungry beggar at a table which contained only empty dishes. 
Hence, a Barmecide meal is an imaginary one. 

124. 20. — Dead men empty bottles. The expression occurs in 

this sense in an old drinking song, Down among the Dead Men, written early 
in the eighteenth century and still popular. 

125. 9. — Beignets d' abricot. Apricot fritters. 
125. 10. — Du monde! In good society. 

125. 14. — White's Chocolate House. A club established in 1698 in a chocolate- 

house in St. James's Street; much frequented by literary men. 

125. 30. — Tipperary. A county in the province of Munster, Ireland. 

125. 33. — Cain. See Genesis, 4, 15: "And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, 

lest any finding him should kill him." 

127. 27. — Let us think gently, etc. To this picture of Steele add that which 

Thackeray has given us in Henry Esmond, especially in Book II, Chapter XV. 



156 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 

128. 7. — Horace. See note to 75, 6. 

128. 9. — Spielhaus. A gaming resort. 

128. 12. — Epicurean master. I. e. Horace; see note to 44, 7. 

128. 13. — Balavian Chloe. Dutch sweet-heart. 

128. 14. — Whitehall. The street in London in which stood the famous royal 

palace where Charles I was executed. 
128. 14. — Busby of the Rod. See note to 66, 11. 

128. 19. — The Hind and the Panther. A satirical allegory written in defence 
of the Roman Catholic Church after the accession of James II. 

129. 7. — Alcaics. Alcseus was a Greek lyric poet who flourished in the sixth 
century B. C. He was the originator of the peculiar form of metre which 
bears his name. 

129. 15. — Versailles. A suburb of Paris, where the royal palace built by Louis 
XVI is situated. 

130. 5. — Mahomet's coffin. An allusion to the tradition that the coffin of 
Mahomet (570-632), the founder of MohamjUedanism, was suspended in 
mid-air. 

130. 15.— Oxford, Robert Harley, Earl of (1661-1724); an English Tory 

statesman and a patron of literary men. 

130. 18. — Spence, Joseph (1699-1768); an English ecclesiastic; author of 
Anecdotes (published 1820), which contains stories of famous eighteenth 
century characters with whom Spence was acquainted. 

131. 3. — Owner of the Sabine farm. Horace, who alluded frequently in his 
lyrics to his farm in the Sabine mountains. 

131. 4. — Verses addressed to Halifax. For Halifax see note to 67, 21. The 

poem in which these verses occur is entitled To the Honourable Charles Mon- 
tague. The first of the two stanzas appeared in a variation of the original 
printed 1692 (Mitford's edition, v. 1, p. 48). Thackeray has not quoted the 
verses correctly; the most considerable change from the original which he has 
made is to transpose the position of the last two verses of each stanza; in the 
original the rhyme scheme for both stanzas is abab. Thackeray's phraseology 
is, moreover, considerably different. 

131. 21. — Thetis. In Greek mythology a sea-goddess, the mother of Achilles. 

131. 27. — Lydia. A girl who appears in many of Horace's lyrics. 

131. 30. — Thomas Moore (1779-1852). An Irish poet, famous for his Irish 
Melodies and for his poem, Lalla Rookh. 

132. 4. — "She sighed, she smiled." The last four stanzas from The Garland. 
132. 21. — "Deus sit propitius huic potatori." "May the Lord be merciful to 

this drinker." 
132. 22. — Walter de Mapes (c 1150-c 1196). A poet, satirist, churchman, and 

politician, who is supposed by some critics to have composed many of the 
legends of King Arthur. The line quoted is from a Latin poem ascribed to 
Mapes which was afterwards used as a drinking song. 



NOTES 257 

133. 4. — Craggs. James Craggs, the Younger (1686-1721); politician and 

friend of Addison's. 
133. ^.— South Sea Stock. See note to 40, 26. 

133. 20. — Brobdingnag. See note to 54, 11. 

133. 31. — Don Quixote. The hero of the famous Spanish satiric romance by 
Cervantes (1547-1616). Sancho; Don Quixote's squire. 

134. 26. — Cheapside. An old street in London, originally the chepe, or market 
place. 

135. 17. — Mr. Gay's "Fables." Written in 1727 and dedicated "To his Highness 
William, Duke of Cumberland," etc. William Augustus (1721-1765), Duke 
of Cumberland, was the third son of George II. The adjective "amiable" is, 
of course, ironic. 

135. 19. — Dettingen. At Dettingen, in Bavaria, on June 27, 1734, George II of 

England, commanding an allied army, defeated a larger French force. 

135. 19. — Culloden. The Duke of Cumberland defeated the Young Pretender, 

Charles Stuart, at Culloden in Scotland, April 16, 1746. 

135. 30. — Minikin. "(Archaic). Of small size or delicate form." (Standard 
Diet.) . 

136. 4. — Bird-organ. "A small barrel-organ for teaching birds to sing." (Stan- 
dard Diet.) . 

136. 9.— Naples. Olive-oil. 

136. 10. — Bergamot. Oil from the orange tree; used as perfumery. 

136. 11. — Philips, Ambrose (1671-1749); a writer of pastorals. The nick- 

name "Namby-pamby," which his contemporaries applied to him, has come to be 
synonymous of anything weakly sentimental and insipid. 

136. 19. — Savoyard. From Savoy, an European country on the borders of 

France and Italy. 

136. 27. — Arbuthnot, John (1667-1735); a Scottish physician and writer resident 
in London. 

137. 1. — Rubini (1795-1854). A famous Italian tenor, who appeared frequently 
in London. 

137. 1. — " Qu'il avail," etc. "That he had tears in his voice." 

137. 4. — In the "Beggar's Opera" and in its wearisome continuation. The Beggar's 
Opera (1728) was immensely popular; its continuation, Polly, was so thinly 
veiled in its satire that the Lord Chamberlain ordered its withdrawal from the 
stage; nevertheless, its sale brought Gay a good sum. 

138. 18. — Great Mr. Pope thought proper to steal it. A look into 

Pope's correspondence (edited by Bowles [l806] vol. 8, pp. 185-191 and 427-432; 
or by Elwin and Courthope [1871-89] vol. 10, pp. 396-400) will show that Pope 
did not actually steal this story from Gay. In the Correspondence three versions 
of the tale will be found, — the first in a letter from Pope to Miss Blount, August 
6, 1718; the second in a letter from Gay to Fortescue, August 9, 1718 — three 
days later, it will be observed, than the first — ; and the third in a letter from Pope 
to Lady Montague, September 1, 1718. The first two accounts are alike; 
the third, the one which Thackeray quotes, varies slightly in phraseology. 
Thackeray was evidently unaware that Pope's first letter preceded Gay's. 



258 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

138. 27. — The "Dunciad." The famous satirical poem (1728) which Pope 

directed against his literary enemies. 

138. 28. — The "Rape of the Lock." A long mock-heroic poem written in 1712. 

140. 1. — Ariosto (1474-1533). An Italian poet; author of the great epic poem, 

Orlando Furioso (1516). 

140. 2. — The Cid. The national hero of Spain, who lived in the eleventh century. 
He is the chief figure in Spanish ballad literature, and appears in the famous 
tragi-comedy, Le Cid (1636), of the French dramatist, Corneille, as the gallant 
and war-like lover of Chimine, daughter of Don Gomez, the enemy of the Cid. 

140. 3. — Armida. A sorceress in the epic poem, Jerusale^n Delivered, of the 

Italian poet Tasso (1544-1595). She had an enchanted garden, wherein she 
detained Rinaldo and other Christian warriors and lulled them into forgetting 
their vows, very much as Calypso detained Ulysses, the hero of the Odyssey, on 
the island of Ogygia. 

140. 25. — Mr. Curll. Edmund Curll (1675-1747); an unscrupulous London 
bookseller, who was included in the Dunciad after a quarrel with its author. 
Thackeray's allusion to him as "the congenial Mr. Curll" is characteristically 
ironic. 

141. 16. — A deux fins. For two ends, or purposes. 

141. 18. — Rechauffe. Warmed over; but see note to 138, 18. 

141. 25.— Apprete. Touched up. 

142. 2.— Peterborough. See note to 61, 15. 

142. 8. — Cachet; "A seal; hence, a distinctive mark; stamp of individuality." 
(Standard Diet.) . 

143. 3. — White's. White's Chocolate House; see note to 125, 14. 

143. 4. — "The Patriot King." A pamphlet by Bolingbroke written in 1738. 

143. 8. — Barcelona. This Spanish city was captured by Peterborough in 1705. 

144. n.—Budgell, Tickell, Philips, Carey. Eustace Budgell (1686-1737) was a 
minor poet and contributor to the Spectator. For Tickell see note to 66, 14. 
For Philips see note to 136, 11. Henry Carey (died 1743) was a minor poet and 
musical composer, best known for his ballad, Sally in our Alley. 

144. 19.— Dwroc, Gerard, Duke of Friuli (1772-1813); a favorite general of 

Napoleon's, killed on the retreat from Bautzen. 

144. 19.— Hardy, Sir Thomas (1769-1839) was with Nelson at the great admi- 

ral's death at Trafalgar in 1805. 

144. 24. — Spadille and manille. In the old Spanish card games of ombre and 

quadrille, respectively the ace of spades and the next to the highest card in the 
deck. The popular eighteenth century game of ombre is alluded to in the Rape 
of the Lock. 

144. 26. — Pope formed part of King Joseph's court. King Joseph is, of course, 
Joseph Addison. See the quotation from Spence's Anecdotes in the note to 85, 28. 

145. 3.—Wycherley, William (1640?-1715) ; an English dramatist. 

145. 31. — The best satire. The satire on Addison from Pope's Epistle to Dr. 
Arbuthnot, quoted on p. 147. 

146. 16. — Bernadotte (1764-1844). At one time made marshal of France by 
Napoleon, he later fought against the Emperor. He had been elected by the 



NOTES 259 

Swedish Diet heir to the throne, and in 1818 at the death of Charles XIII he 

became Charles XIV. 
148. 21. — Saint Sebastian. A Roman soldier who suffered martyrdom in the 

fourth century for professing Christianity. He is represented in art as bound to 

a tree and pierced with arrows. 
148. 25. — How a Christian could die. Addison's dying words to his stepson were, 

"See how a Christian dies." 

148. Zl.—Godolphin. See note to 83, 23. 

149. 11. — Thomson, James (1700-1748); author of The Seasons, a poem which 
had considerable influence. 

149. 20. — Twickenham. "A London suburb to which Pope retired in 1718. The 
name appears in one of the titles by which he was known among his literary 
opponents, "The Wicked Wasp of Twickenham." 

149. 24. — Alterbury, Francis, Bishop of Rochester (1662-1732); a famous Eng- 
lish divine. He figures in Thackeray's Henry Esmond, Book I, Chapter XIV. 

150. 5. — Gar/^, Sir Samuel (1661-1719) ; an English physician and poet. His 
best known poem is The Dispensary (1699). 

150. 7. — Co<frJMg/o7j, Colonel Christopher (1668-1710); general of King William 

Ill's and friend of Garth's. 
150. 11. — Alcibiades (450-404 B. C.) ; a brilliant Athenian soldier and politician, 

who was, like Bolingbroke, exiled from his native city. 
150. 12.— Oxford. See note to 130. 15. 

150. 18. — Jervas, Charles (1675-1739) ; an Irish portrait painter; a friend of 

Pope's. 
150. 19. — Richardson, Jonathan (1665-1745); a painter friend of Pope's. 

150. 23. — Kneller, Sir Godfrey (1646-1723) ; a German portrait painter who 

settled in London and became well known in England and France as a court 

painter. 

153. 17. — The famous Greek picture. The painting by the Greek artist, Timan- 
thes (c. 400 B. C), representing the sacrifice of Iphigenia. In this picture 
Agamemnon, who has been forced by the oracle to sacrifice his daughter, 
is shown with his face covered. 

154. 25.— Gibber, CoUey (1671-1757); an English actor, dramatist, and 
theatrical manager; he was made poet-laureate in 1730. He quarreled with 
Pope, who made him the hero of the second edition of the Dunciad. 

155. 15.— Tibbald. Lewis Theobald — pronounced Tibbald — (1688 - 1744); 
famous as one of the best of the earlier Shaksperian commentators and editors. 
His edition of Shakspere appeared in 1734 and was much superior to Pope's 
edition of 1725, which Theobald had severely criticized. This criticism Pope 

I took so to heart that he quarreled bitterly with Theobald and made him the 

hero of the first edition of the Dunciad. 
(155. 15. — Welsted, l^Qondivd (1688-1747); a minor satirist who also figures in the 

Dunciad. 
155. n .—Grub Street. See note to 69, 9. 

155. 30. — Petty France. A London street on which the house of Milton stood 
until its destruction in 1877. 



260 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

155. 31. — Budge Row. On the north side of the Thames running east and 
west between the London and the Southwark bridges. It was so called from 
its being filled with the shops of the makers of budge, lamb-skin prepared to 
resemble fur. 

157. 13. — As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppressed. In Greek mythology 

Argus was a demi-god with a hundred eyes, who was charged by Hera to guard 
lo, a mistress of Zeus'. Hermes rescued the girl by putting the monster to 
sleep with his wand and then slaying it. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 



159. 15.— Jonathan Wild (1682?-1725) ; a famous English detective and later 
a criminal, who was executed for house-breaking. The hero of Fielding's 
History of Jonathan Wild, the Great (1743). 

160. 4. — "Goody Two Shoes." A popular nursery tale which appeared in 1765, 
and is supposed to have been written by Goldsmith. 

160. 12. — Dr. Harrison. A character in Fielding's novel, Amelia (1751). 

160. 21. — Jack Sheppard (1702-1724) ; an English highwayman and jail-breaker 

who was hanged at Tyburn. 
160. 25. — "Rake's Progress." A series of moral pictures by Hogarth, depicting 

the downfall of a rich young profligate. 

160. 29. — Draco. A Greek legislator, who in 621 B. C. framed the first Athe- 
nian code of laws; they were so severe that the adjective Draconian has come 
to be applied to all unmerciful legislation. 

161. 17. — William the Conqueror. William of Normandy (1027-1087), who 
became King William I of England by defeating Harold at Hastings, England, 
in 1066. 

162. 6. — Andromeda. In Greek mythology the daughter of Cepheus, King of 
the Ethiopians. She was chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea-monster, but 
was rescued by the hero Perseus, who afterwards married her. 

162. 7. — Judith Holofernes. Judith was the heroine of the 

book of Judith in the Apocrypha, who rescued her nation by beheading Holo- 
fernes, King of the Assyrians, while he slept. This dramatic tale has been very 
popular with writers and painters. 

162. 19. — The Rose. See note to 107, 6. 

162. 29. — Tyburn. See note to 96, 13. 

163. 12. — "Industry and Idleness." A series of plates engraved in 1747. The 
story of the good apprentice who became Lord Mayor, and of the bad appren- 
tice who was hanged at Tyburn was a favorite with English moralists of this 
and of earlier times. Note the tag-names which Hogarth has given his 
characters. 

163. 16. — Whittington, Sir Richard (1358?-1423) ; he began life as a poor boy 

with no property but a cat — so the story goes — but because of his industry 
and virtue he was three times elected Lord Mayor of London, and became, 



NOTES 261 

accordingly, the Abraham Lincoln of the London small boy. It will be ob- 
served that Hogarth's "industrious apprentice" follows Whittington's ex- 
ample with commendable exactness. 

163. 16. — The "London 'Prentice" is a didactic ballad which, in Plate I of the 

series, the "industrious apprentice" has hanging near him as a guide to a suc- 
cessful career. 

163. 17. — Moll Flanders. A popular thief and adventuress of the time of 

Charles II, who became the heroine of ballad story, and who figures in Defoe's 
novel, Moll Flanders (1722). Ballad stories of her deeds helped to fill out the 
Diamond Dick literature of the eighteenth century. 

163. 20. — "Halfpenny-under-the-hal." A game of chance; probably the same 

as hustle-cap, a game in which small coins are tossed in a cap or hat. 

163. 27 .^Marrow-bones and cleavers. The music produced in honor of the 
happy young couple by the butchers' apprentices of the neighborhood. 

164. 3. — Chuck-farthing. A game like "pitch-penny." 

164. 13. — The Companies of London march in the august procession. On the 

annual Lord Mayor's Day the trade guilds of London, from whose member- 
ship the magistrate had been chosen, marched in procession to the guild hall, 
dressed in full livery, each company drawing the pageant or float emblematic 
of its trade. 

164. 14. — Trainbands. I. e. "trained bands;" the drill organizations of the 
city. 

165. 1. — Marble arch. See note to 96, 13. 

165. 4. — Tyburnia. A fashionable quarter of West London lying north of 

Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park on the site of the old place of execution. 

The name Tyburn is derived from the two burns or brooks which once united 

near this place. 
165. n.— Dick Tur pin. See note to 93, 23. 

165. 17. — Squire Western. A character in Fielding's Totn Jones. 

165. 19. — Hercules Pillars. A tavern; the original Pillars of Hercules are two 

hills on opposite sides of the Straits of Gibraltar, which Hercules is .«"aid in 

Greek legend to have torn apart. 

165. 31. — Hogarth drew him. A pun on the word. English criminals were at 
one time often drawn to the gallows on hurdles. 

166. 14. — Bridewell. From St. Bride's Well. Originally a hospital for the 
poor in London; later a house of correction. Hogarth has drawn a picture of 
the place in Plate IV of The Harlot's Progress (1723). 

166. \%.—Walpole. See note to 92, 25. 

166. 25. — Johnny Cope. Sir John Cope, commander-in-chief of the British 

forces in Scotland in the Jacobite uprising of 1745, was surprised by the Scotch 
under the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, at Preston Pans, Sep- 
tember 21, 1745, and forced to retreat. His retreat gave rise to the Scottish 
popular song which contains the derisive line: 

"Hey, Johnie Cope, are ye waukin yet?" 

166. IS.—CuUoden. See note to 135, 19. 



262 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

166. 28. — Parson Adams. A famous character in Fielding's novel, Joseph 

Andrews (1742). 

166. 29. — The Salisbury Fly. The coach running to Salisbury about seventy- 

five miles southwest of London. Hogarth has given us a picture of it in his 
engraving Night; here it is labelled "The Salisbury Flying Coach." 

166. 30. — Old Angel. The name given the tavern in Hogarth's The Country 
Inn-yard. 

167. 4. — He may have ridden the leaders to Humphrey Clinker. I. e. he may 
have ridden one of the leading horses of the coach, while Humphrey Clinker 
rode one of the rear horses. Humphrey Clinker is a character in Smollett's 
The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker (1771), who began his career as a ragged 
postilion. 

167. 6. — Jack of the Centurion. The sailor from the Centurion who appears 

on top of the stage-coach in Hogarth's The Country Inn- Yard. 
167. 8. — Jack Hatchway. A naval officer in Smollett's Peregrine Pickle. 

167. 9. — Lismahago. A Scotch naval officer in Smollett's Humphrey Clinker. 

Both "it's" in this sentence refer, of course, to Jack of the Centurion. 
167. 15. — Black-legs. Professional swindlers and cheats. 

167. 16. — Garr/c^, David (1717-1779); a celebrated English tragedian, famous 

for his acting of characters from Shakspere. His favorite role was King 

Richard III. 
167. 17. — Macheath and Polly. See notes to 39, 31 and 137, 4. 

167. 22. — Calais Gate. Calais, on the north coast of France, was for centuries 

a bone of contention between France and England. In Hogarth's time it 

was in the hands of the French. 
167. 23. — Roderick Random. The hero of Smollett's Roderick Random (1748). 

Monsieur de Strap was his devoted follower. 
167. 25.— Dettingen. See note to 135, 19. 

167. 28.— Broughton the Boxer (1705-1789); the first great English boxer, who 

conducted a boxing school and was a favorite in eighteenth century polite 

society. He appears in Hogarth's picture, March to Finchley. 
167. 28. — Sarah Malcolm was executed in 1733 for three murders. Hogarth 

painted her in Newgate. 
167. 29. — Simon Lovat the traitor. Simon Eraser, Lord Lovat (1726-1782); 

a Highland chief who supported the Young Pretender, but afterwards being 

pardoned, entered the government service. He was a great friend of Hogarth's, 

who painted an excellent portrait of him. 

167. 29. — John Wilkes (1727-1797); a popular English agitator who attacked 
the government in his periodical. The North Briton; in the famous No. 45 
(published April 23, 1763) he criticized the king's message to Parliament and 
as a result was imprisoned. He was so popular that after having been expelled 
from Parliament, he was repeatedly returned to tlie House of Commons and 
was elected Lord Mayor of London. 

168. 7.— Queen Caroline. (1683-1737) Wife of George II of England. She 
is a prominent character in Scott's Heart of Midlothian. 

168. 21. — Wooden shoes. See note to 50, 4. 



NOTES 263 

168. 26. — Correggio (1494-1534). A great Italian painter, famous for the color 

and harmony of his work. 

168. 26. — The Caracci. Agostino Caracci (1558-1602), Annibale Caracci 
(1560-1609), and Ludovico Caracci (1555-1619) were noted Italian painters 
and engravers. The first two were brothers; the last, a cousin. 

169. 5. — Handel, George Frederick (1685-1759); a noted German musician 
and composer who spent some years in England. He had a rival, now almost 
forgotten, in the Italian composer, Bononcini, and the following lines were 
written about their contending claims; the last two are sometimes attributed 
to Swift: 

"Some say, compared to Bononcini, 
That Mynheer Handel's but a ninny; 
Others aver that he to Handel 
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle. 
Strange all this difference should be 
'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee." 

169. 16. — Liston, John (1776? -1846) ; a celebrated comic actor, who was, how- 

ever, but a mediocre tragedian. 

169. 22. — Churchill, Charles (1731-1764); a minor poet and friend of John 
Wilkes'; he mingled in the political controversies of which his friend was the 
centre and barely escaped imprisonment for his participation in the printing 
of No. 45 of The North Briton. 

170. 20. — Mr. Pickwick. The immortal leader of the Pickwick Club in 
Dickens's Pickwick Papers (1836-7) . 

170. 22. — Gravesend. A popular resort on the Thames about twenty miles 

east of London. Rochester and Sheer ness are ports at the mouth of the Thames. 

170. 30. — Billingsgate. See note to 75, 4. 

171. 1. — "Caracatura." A caricature or burlesque drawing. 

171. 13. — Hop-scotch. A game still popular in most parts of America. It is 
played by the participants' hopping on one foot and kicking a small stone or 
block of wood from the various compartments of a rectangular figure drawn 
on the ground. 

172. 24.— The great Scotch novelist. Sir Walter Scott. 

173. 17. — Mr. Morgan. A surgeon in Roderick Random. 

173. 18. — Dr. Caius. A comical French physician in Shakspere's Merry 

Wives of Windsor. 
173. 20.— Major Dalgetty. A brave officer in Scott's Legend of Montrose. 

173. 25. — Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble. Characters in Smollett's 

Humphrey Clinker. 

173. 29. — Bladud's Well. Bladud was a legendary king of England, father 
of King Lear, who founded the city of Bath and dedicated the hot springs 
there to the goddess Minerva. 

174. 5. — Tom Jones. The hero of Fielding's novel, Tom Jones (1749) . 

174. 6.— Captain Booth. A leading character in Fielding's novel, Amelia 

(1751). 



264 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

175. 25.— Oldfields. Anne Oldfield (1683-1730); a popular and successful 

English actress. 
175. 26. — Bracegirdles. See note to 69, 15. 

177. 30. — "Pamela." The first of Samuel Richardson's novels (1740). 

178. W.—Bohea. Black tea. 

178. 13. — Mohock. Usually spelled Mohawk; the name given to a member of 

the band of lawless young men who in the early eighteenth century committed 
depredations at night in the streets of London. , 

178. 14. — The ladies of his court. Tlie openly sentimental and frankly 
didactic moral tone of Richardson's novels made him immensely popular with 
women. 

179. 4. — Johnson would not sit down with him. According to Boswell Dr. 
Johnson called Fielding "a barren rascal," and remarked that "there is more 
knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom Jones." 

179. 7. — Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794); a celebrated English historian; author 

of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1772 — ). His panegyric of 
Fielding occurs in his Miscellaneous Works I, 4. 

179. 15. — Escurial. The royal residence and mausoleum of the Spanish kings, 

built in the sixteenth century by Philip II. 

179. 29. — Charles Lamb (1775-1834). English essayist; author of Essays of 
Elia. 

180. 1. — Blifil .... Lady Bellaston Sophia .... 

Parson Thwackum . . . Miss Seagrim. Characters in Tom Jones. 

180. 30. — Charles and Joseph .Surface. Characters in Sheridan's comedy, The 

School for Scandal. 

182. 10. — Colonel Bath. A character in Fielding's Amelia. 

182. 11. — Colonel Gardiner (1688-1745); a brave English officer, who was 

wounded at Ramillies and killed after a gallant fight at the battle of Preston 
Pans in Scotland. 

182. 11. — Duke of Cumberland. See note to 135, 17. 

182. 29. — Coup de main. Literally "a blow of the hand;" hence, any unex- 

pected and surprising move. ^ 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 



ind. 



185. 23. — Mullingar. In the county of West Meath in the center of Irelani 

about fifty miles northwest of Dublin. 

185. 25. — Carrickfergus. An Irish sea-port a few miles north of Belfast. 

186. 2. — Elvington. A village in Yorkshire, England. 

186. 7. — Trim . . . Le Fevre .... Uncle Toby. Characters ii 

Tristram Shandy. A montero is a huntsman's cap with wide flaps; a roque 
laure is a short cloak. 

186. 11. — Ramillies .... Malplaquel. See note to 95, 10. 

186. 25. — Sutton. A village a few miles north of York. 

186. 26. — Stillington. A parish next to Sutton. 



NOTES 265 

188. 5. — Sum mortaliter in amore. "I am 'dead in love'." 

188. 10. — Arroser. To besprinkle. 

188. 14. — Shandean. (Three syllables) ; an allusion to Tristram Shandy. 

188. 15. — Yorick. A character in Tristram Shandy; the name under which 

Sterne wrote the Sentimental Journey. He makes use of the name in the letter 

which follows. For its origin see Hatnlet V, 1 . 
188. 17. — Rabelais, Francois (1483? -1553); a French satirist whose writings 

are characterized by grotesqueness and coarse humor. He was for a time cure 

of Meudon, a small town near Paris. Both Swift and Sterne have for their 

coarseness been styled "The English Rabelais." 
188. 2^.— Lord Bathurst. Allen Apsley, Earl of Bathurst (1684-1775); a Tory 

opponent of Walpole's and a patron of literary men. 
190. 15. — Indiaman. A ship plying between England and India. 

190. 16. — Deal. A sea-port in Kent, England. 

191. 6. — Scarron his Maintenon. Paul Scarron (1610-1660), a French writer of 
humorous and satiric burlesque poems, married Fran^oise D'Aubigoe (1635- 
1719) in 1652. After his death his widow, known then as Madame de Main- 
tenon, became a member of the royal household of Louis XIV, over whom she 
exercised an almost boundless influence, and whom she at length secretly 
married. 

191. 7. — Waller his Saccharissa. Edmund Waller (1605-1687); a lyric poet 

who was very popular in his own day; he was a favorite of Oliver Cromwell's. 
Saccharissa was the name which Waller applied to Lady Dorothy Sydney, 
daughter of the Earl of Leicester, in poems which he addressed to her. 

191. 15. — Lady P . Lady Percy, daughter of Lord Bute. 

191. 28. — "Sentimental Journey." A Sentimental Journey through France and 
Italy; written in 1768 after a visit to those countries. 

192. 2. — Pluto. In classical mythology the ruler of Hades, the infernal regions. 
192. 31. — Des chajisons grivoises. Jolly songs. 

194. 6. — Desobligeante. Disobliging. The carriage is so called because there 

is in it room only for one. 
194. 16. — Le tour est fait. The feat is accomplished. 

194. 16. — Paillasse. Stock name for a clown. 

194. 29. — Franciscan. A member of an order of mendicant friars named for 
their founder, St. Francis of Assisi. 

195. 4. — Monsieur de Soubise. Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise (1715- 
1787); a French general and courtier who was defeated November 5, 1757, at 
Rossbach. He insisted, even while on the march, upon having within his 
camp every luxury possible. 

197. 34. — "Viva la joia, fidon la tristessa." "Long live joy; away with sorrow." 

198. 14. — Double entendre. Double meaning; with reference to a statement 
which is apparently innocent, but which contains an indecent Suggestion. 

198. 16. — Satyr. In Greek mythology demi-gods, half man and half goat, 

who attended Bacchus. 
198. 22. — "David Copperfield." Charles Dickens's greatest novel, written in 

1849-50. 



266 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

198. 23. — "Jete sur cette boiUe," etc. A rough translation of the poem follows: 

Hurled upon this globe, 

Puny, wretched, suffering; 

Smothered in the throng. 

Because I was so small; 

A touching plaint 

Sprang to my lips. 

The good God said to me: "Sing, 

Sing, poor little creature." 

To sing then — unless I deceive myself — 

Is my task here below. 

Will not all whom I entertain 

Love me for the songs? 
The following translation by Thackeray himself was found among his papers 
many years after his death by his daughter, Lady Ritchie. It was first 
published in the Atlantic Monthly for August, 1910, and is here reproduced 
by the kind permission of the editor : 

A CASTAWAY 

A castaway on this great earth 
A sickly child of humble birth 

And homely feature 
Before me rushed the swift and strong 
I thought to perish in the throng 

Poor puny creature. 

Then crying in my loneliness 

I prayed that Heaven in my distress 

Some aid would bring 
And pitying my misery 
My guardian angel said he 

Sing poet sing ! 

Since then my grief is not so sharp 
I know my lot and tune my harp 

And chant my ditty, 
And kindly voices cheer the bard 
And gentle hearts his song reward 

With love and pity. 

199. 5. — Beranger, Pierre Jean de (1780-1857) ; a popular French lyric poet. 

199. 20. — Auburn. The name which Goldsmith uses in his poem, The Deserted 

Village {17<70), for Lissoy, Westmeath county, Ireland. 

199. 20. — Wakefield. The scene of Goldsmith's novel, The Vicar of Wake- 
field (1766). The town is in southern Yorkshire. 

200. 13. — Doctor Primrose. The good clergyman, the hero of The Vicar of 
Wakefield. 



NOTES 267 

201. 18. — Hedge-schoolmaster. "Hedge-school: A school kept in a hedge- 

corner or in the open air, as formerly in Ireland." (Standard Diet.) . 

201. 19. — Elphin. A town in Roscommon county, Province of Connaught, 

Ireland. 

201. 26. — -NoU. An abbreviation for Oliver. Oliver Cromwell was frequently 

alluded to as "Old Noll." 

201. 30. — "Mistake of a Night." The original title of Goldsmith's famous comedy 
She Stoops to Conquer (1774) , which was based on this incident in his career. 

202. 1. — Ardagh. Town in Longford County, Ireland. 

202. 9. — ALsop. A Greek writer of fables, who lived in the sixth century B. C. 
According to tradition he was deformed and ugly. 

203. 4. — Sizar. At Cambridge University, and at Trinity College, Dublin, 
a poor student who pays nothing for food, lodging, and tuition. Formerly he 
was required to perform menial services in return for what was given him; at 
present, however, the position of sizar corresponds more nearly to that of 
scholar in an American university. 

203. 15. — The young prodigal came home, etc. Read the parable of the Prodigal 

Son in Luke XV, 11-32. 

203. 24. — Woolsack. The cushion on which the Lord Chancellor sits while 
acting as oresiding officer of the House of Lords; here, accordingly, the highest 
office which young Goldsmith, as a law-student, could dream of securing. 

204. 1. — Farheini, Du Petit. Famous Parisian physicians of the time. Du 
Monceau A Parisian botanist. 

204. 9. — Ballymahon. A town in Longford county, Ireland. 

204. 18. — "But me not destined," etc. From Goldsmith's The Traveller (1764), 

11. 23-31. 

204. 26. — I spoke in a former lecture, etc. See p. 183, 11. 21 ff. 

205. \9.—Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). The most celebrated of English 
portrait painters and one of the most popular Englishmen of his day. 

206. 7. — Beai/je, James (1735-1803) ; a Scotch poet and philosopher who was 
a favorite of George Ill's. 

206. 9. — Kelly, Hugh (1739-1777); a writer of weakly sentimental comedies. 

His play. False Delicacy (1768), was once very popular. He and Goldsmith 
regarded each other as rivals. 

206. 13. — Newbery kept back the manuscript. Although Goldsmith's Vicar of 

Wakefield was submitted to Francis Newbery, the publisher, in 1764, it was 
withheld from publication until The Traveller had established Goldsmith's 
reputation. The book finally appeared March 27, 1766. 

206. 16. — Cobnan's actors declined their parts in his delightful comedy. When 

Goldsmith's famous comedy. She Stoops to Conquer, was first offered to the 
prominent theatrical manager, George Colman (1732-1794), his hesitancy in 
accepting the play was increased by the fear among his actors that the comedy 
would be a failure. He finally yielded, however, to the entreaties of Dr. John- 
son, and produced the play at Covent Garden, March 15, 1773. It was im- 
mediately successful. 



268 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

206. 21. — Burke, Edmund (1729-1797); a famous statesman, celebrated for 

his opposition to George Ill's policy in dealing with the American colonies. 

206. 21. — Fox, Charles James (1749-180,')); one of the most celebrated of 
English statesmen; leader of the Whig party, and one of the most popular men 
of his time. 

207. 9. — Griffiths. This letter may be found in Forster's Life of Goldsmith, 
p. 102. 

208. \.—Who has touched on almost every subject of literature, etc. Quoted 
from Goldsmith's epitaph; see note to 213, 6. 

209. 15. — "Here as I take my solitary rounds," etc. From The Deserted Village, 
11. 77-112. 

210. 26. — Utopia. The ideal commonwealth created by Sir Thomas More 
(1478-1535) in his poem of the same name. 

210. 27. — Yvetot. A small town in Normandy, about which Beranger wrote a 
famous ballad, Le Roi d' Yvetot. The first stanza of Thackeray's imitation 
reads as follows: 

There was a king of Yvetot, 

Of whom renown hath little said, 
Who let all thoughts of glory go, 

And dawdled half his days abed; 
And every night, as night came round 

By Jenny with a night-cap crowned, 
Slept very sound: 
Sing ho, ho, ho, and he, he, he, 
That's the kind of king for me. 

211. 3. Ranelagh. A place of amusement in Chelsea on the north bank of the 
Thames. These gardens, which were opened in 1742, were frequented by the 
fast set of London, and were finally closed in 1803 because of the character of 
the public entertainments given there. 

211. 3. — The Pantheon. A fashionable place of amusement erected on Oxford 

Street, London, in 1772, and famous long after its destruction by fire in 1792. 
It was named after the much more famous building in Rome. 

211. 4. — Madame Comely s. A popular manager cf public balls and other 

assemblies in London. Her house in Soho Square was for years a fashionable- 
evening resort. 

211. 5. — The Jessamy Bride Mary Horneck. The Jessamy 

Bride was the playful name which Goldsmith gave to Mary Horneck, th<- 
younger daughter of an officer's widow, whom he greatly admired. She 
married a certain Mr. Gwyn and died in 1840. Her older sister, Catherine, 
whom the poet called Little Comedy, was married in 1771 to the celebratetl 
caricaturist, Henry William Bunbury. 

211. \Q.—Gilray. James Gillray (1757-1815)— Thackeray has misspelled the 

name — was a celebrated caricaturist who was very popular with his contem- 
poraries in spite of the sharpness of his satire. 



NOTES 269 

211. 22.— Hazliit, William (1778-1830); an English critic, best known by his 

essays on Shakspere. 

211. 23. — Northcote, James (1746-1831); a well-known English portrait- 

painter. 

211. 25. — The younger Colman. George Colman the Younger (1762-1836) 
was the son ot the theatrical manager who first produced Goldsmith's comedy. 
She Stoops to Conquer (see note to 206, 16) . He wrote a memoir of his own 
life in Random Records (1831) ; this is the source of Thackeray's quotation. 

212. 27. — "/ plucked his gown to share the good man's smile." The Deserted 
Village I. 184; the "good man" is the village pastor. 

213. 6.— -The righteous pen that wrote his epitaph. On Goldsmith's monument 
in Westminster Abbey is an epitaph written by Doctor Samuel Johnson which 
contains the following famous line: "Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non 
tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit," — "Who left untouched no form of 
writing, nor touched any that he did not adorn." 

214. 7. — He cannot come to London, etc. A direct allusion, of course, to Gold- 
smith. See p. 203, 11. 21-27. 

215. 6.— The Taller. Steele. 

215. 6. — The Citizen of the World. The pen-name used by Goldsmith in the 

Letters from a Chinese Merchant residing in London to his friends in the East 
(1762). 

215. 29.— Bon jour. Good day. 

216. 4. — Grand homme incojnpris. Great man not understood. 

CHARITY AND HUMOR 

"Thackeray has himself put on record the originating source of his lecture 
on Charily and Humor, about this time, when we returned once more to New 
York. Some friends wished to benefit a "Ladies' Society for the Employment 
and Relief of the Poor," and he volunteered to write a new discourse to be 
delivered for that purpose. 

"He took a whole day for the task, lying down in his favorite recumbent 
position in bed, smoking, whilst dictating fluently the phrases as they came. I 
took them down, with little or no intermission from breakfast-time till late in 
the dusk of evening. The dinner-gong sounded, and the manuscript was then 

completed 

. . . . The charge of self-repetition, made heedlessly against it, was 
scarcely avoidable in the first part, which is a recapitulation of the "Humor- 
ists' " drift of purpose. These eighteenth century wits are passed in review 
in the first half, as a foil to their subsequent comparison with the modern forms 
of "Humor" and "Charity" to be found in the works of contemporaries, and 
to whom a noble tribute of respectful admiration is paid so touchingly. Doubt- 
less the incentive of a benevolent motive was inspiring to the author. 

"The lecture was first given a day or two after, on the 31st of January, at 
the Church of the Messiah, in Broadway, at three o'clock in the afternoon. 



270 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

The charge for each ticket was one dollar, and the net result was about twelve 
hundred dollars. The ladies expressed their gratification at this windfall." 
— With Thackeray in America by Eyre Crowe, Thackeray's secretary. 

217. 18. — Week-day preachers. Thackeray has also used this phrase in the 
lecture on Swift (p. 36, 1. 10.) 

218. 15. — Hood, Thomas (1798-1845); an English poet and humorist. 
218. 25. — Tartuffe. A religious hypocrite in Moliere's drama, Tartuffe. 
218. 25.— Joseph Surface. See note to 180, 30. 

218. 25. — Stiggins. A hypocritical parson in Dickens's Pickwick Papers. 

218. 26. — Chadband. A bland, oily clergyman in Dickens's Bleak House. 

219. 2. — Pharisee. A member of an ancient Jewish sect who paid such strict 
attention to the form of their worship that their name has come to be applied 
to all hypocritical, ostentatious worshippers. 

221. 23. — The carriage in Monsieur Dessein's court-yard . ... the dead 

donkey. See Thackeray's sixth lecture, p. 194, 11. 5flf. 

221. 25. — Shandrydan. A crude, ramshackle cart. 

222. 4. — Le Fevre Uncle Toby. See note to 186, 7. 

222. 14. — He chisels his savage indignation on his tomb-stone. See note to 51, 25. 

222. 28. — Lady Masham (1670-1734) ; a court lady who was a favorite of Queen 
Anne's. 

223. 4. — ri^da//, William (1669-1735); an English controversialist and early 
friend of Swift's. He incurred the Dean's hatred when, in 1704, he announced 
his intention of becoming a suitor for the hand of Stella (Hester Johnson). 

223. 15. — Money which he left to his friend the Duchess of 

Marlborough. See p. 69, II. 21 ff. 
223. 20. — Euclid. An Alexandrian geometer who flourished in the third 

century B. C, and has left his name to the system of geometry which he 

devised. 

223. 23. — Flic-fiac. "A kind of step in dancing." (New English Diet.). 

224. 5. — Monsieur Pirouette. Thackeray's name for the dancing-master men- 
tioned on the preceding page. 

224. 10. — Epicureans. See note to 44, 7. 

224. 12. — Anacreon (563? -478 ? B. C). A Greek lyric poet famous for his 
poems of wine and love. 

225. 19. — Pall-Mall. (Pronounced pell-mell) . A fashionable street in London. 

225. 24. — Sir Roger de Coverley. See note to 89, 13. 

226. 15. — Hidalgo Don Quixote. Hidalgo is a Spanish title of nobility, equiva- 
lent substantially to the English title of Lord. For Don Quixote se^• note 
to 133. 31. 

226. 20. — Mr. Spectator, with his short face. Addison, who contributed to 
the Spectator. In the first of these papers the Spectator describes himself 
as "a short-faced gentleman." 

227. 4. — Foundling Hospital Captain Coram. Thomas Coram 

(1668? -1751) was an explorer and philanthropist whose sympathy for aban- 
doned children led to his securing in 1742 subscriptions for a foundling hospital 
in London. Hogarth was among the subscribers. 



NOTES 271 

227. 16. — Cothurnus. A boot with a thick sole, which was worn on tlie stage by 

the actors in Greek tragedy; hence the word has come to stand for formal 
tragedy. 

227. 27. — Comedy of the Restoration. See p. 69 ff., and note to 69, 26. 

228. 12. — "Gulliver." See note to 37, 13. 

228. 13.— "Jonathan Wild." See note to 159, 15. 

228. 21. — "Tom Jones." See note to 174, 5. 

228. 22. — Doctor Harrison. See note to 160, 12. 

228. 22. — Parson Adams Joseph Andrews. See note to 166, 28. 

228. 29.— Blifil Sophia. See note to 180, 1. 

229. 10. — Olivia ..... Moses. Children of Dr. Primrose, in Gold- 
smith's novel, The Vicar of Wakefield. 

229. 24:.— Ber anger. See note to 199, 5. 

229. 28. — Burns, Robert (1759-1796) ; the national poet of Scotland. 

230. 23. — Pons lachrymarum. The fountain of tears. 

231. 17. — Brighton. A popular English sea-side resort, forty-seven miles 
south of London. 

232. 11. — Berlin cotton gloves. A knit cotton glove manufactured in Berlin. 
232. 14. — Panny Porester. A stock name for a melodramatic heroine. 

232. 15. — Tom Bowling. — A stock name for a sailor. 

233. 7. — Mr. Punch. See note to 56, 6, and Introduction, p. 15. 

233. 13. — Jerrold, Douglas (1803-1857) ; an English dramatist and humorist. 

233. 16. — "Vanity Pair.'' One of Thackeray's most famous novels; published 
in 1847-8. This entire passage illustrates Thackeray's habit of stepping t)ut 
of his shoes and criticizing himself and his works as though he were not the 
author of them. 

234. 23. — The charities of Mr. Dickens. Read Dickens's letter to Thackeray in 
response to this generous tribute, — Introduction, p. 22. 

235. 20. — Two that do. A reference, of course, to Thackeray's two daughters. 

236. 7. — When .... "Nicholas Nickleby" came out. Dickens's novel, 
Nicholas Nickleby, was published serially between April, 1838 and October, 1839. 
A considerable part of the book is given up to an attack upon the cheap schools 
of Yorkshire, of which "Dotheboys Hall" was a type. 

236. 19. — Squeers. The brutal and ignorant proprietor of "Dotheboys Hall" 

in Nicholas Nickleby. 

236. 24. — Crummies the Phenomenon. Characters in 

Nicholas Nickleby. 

237. 1. — Marchioness .... Mr. Richard Swiveller. Characters in 
Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop. 

237. 2. — Oliver Twist the artful Dodger. Characters in Dick- 

ens's Oliver Twist. 

237. 6. — Sairey Gamp. An ignorant nurse in Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewil, who 
is constantly backing up her own opinions by references to an imaginary 
Mrs. Harris. 

237. 10. — Micawber. An eccentric character in Dickens's David Copperfield. 



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